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Though the international trade in agricultural commodities is worth more than $1.6 trillion/year, we still have a poor understanding of the supply chains connecting places of production and consumption and the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of this trade. In this study, we provide a wall-to-wall subnational map of the origin and supply chain of Brazilian meat, offal, and live cattle exports from 2015 to 2017, a trade worth more than $5.4 billion/year. Brazil is the world’s largest beef exporter, exporting approximately one-fifth of its production, and the sector has a notable environmental footprint, linked to one-fifth of all commodity-driven deforestation across the tropics. By combining official per-shipment trade records, slaughterhouse export licenses, subnational agricultural statistics, and data on the origin of cattle per slaughterhouse, we mapped the flow of cattle from more than 2,800 municipalities where cattle were raised to 152 exporting slaughterhouses where they were slaughtered, via the 204 exporting and 3,383 importing companies handling that trade, and finally to 152 importing countries. We find stark differences in the subnational origin of the sourcing of different actors and link this supply chain mapping to spatially explicit data on cattle-associated deforestation, to estimate the “deforestation risk” (in hectares/year) of each supply chain actor over time. Our results provide an unprecedented insight into the global trade of a deforestation-risk commodity and demonstrate the potential for improved supply chain transparency based on currently available data.

Zero deforestation commitments (ZDCs) are voluntary initiatives where companies or countries pledge to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. These commitments offer much promise for sustainable commodity production, but are undermined by a lack of transparency about their coverage and impacts. Here, using state-of-the-art supply chain data, we introduce an approach to evaluate the impact of ZDCs, linking traders and international markets to commodity-associated deforestation in the sub-national jurisdictions from which they source. We focus on the Brazilian soy sector, where we find that ZDC coverage is increasing, but under-represents the Cerrado biome where most soy-associated deforestation currently takes place. Though soy-associated deforestation declined in the Amazon after the introduction of the Soy Moratorium, we observe no change in the exposure of companies or countries adopting ZDCs to soy-associated deforestation in the Cerrado. We further assess the formulation and implementation of these ZDCs and identify several systematic weaknesses that must be addressed to increase the likelihood that they achieve meaningful reductions in deforestation in future. As the 2020 deadline for several of these commitments approaches, our approach can provide independent monitoring of progress toward the goal of ending commodity-associated deforestation.

Recent public and private policies seek to end deforestation by regulating the production and trade of forest‐risk commodities. The design, implementation, and evaluation of these policies rely on metrics that are typically bounded in scope by either territories or supply chains, and therefore only provide a partial account of deforestation on the ground. We argue that metrics linking deforestation and forest degradation to commodity production need to consider two distinct questions: (1) How much of today's commodity production is associated with past deforestation? and (2) to what extent is today's deforestation driven by the prospects of producing a specific commodity in the future? This paper describes how metrics can respond to these questions by being classified according to their commodity or deforestation focus. We propose common terminology to facilitate the communication and use of these perspectives and metrics. We then make the case for combining perspectives through the monitoring and reporting of multiple metrics by governments, companies, and non‐governmental organizations alike to both assess progress and drive more coordinated action to reduce deforestation.

The Amazon Basin is a region of global importance for the carbon and hydrological cycles, a biodiversity hotspot, and a potential centre for future economic development. The region is also a major source of water vapour recycled into continental precipitation through evapotranspiration processes. This review applies an ecohydrological approach to Amazonia's water cycle by looking at contributions of water resources in the context of future agricultural production. At present, agriculture in the region is primarily rain-fed and relies almost exclusively on green-water resources (soil moisture regenerated by precipitation). Future agricultural development, however, will likely follow pathways that include irrigation from blue-water sources (surface water and groundwater) as insurance from variability in precipitation. In this review, we first provide an updated summary of the green–blue ecohydrological framework before describing past trends in Amazonia's water resources within the context of land use and land cover change. We then describe green- and blue-water trade-offs in light of future agricultural production and potential irrigation to assess costs and benefits to terrestrial ecosystems, particularly land and biodiversity protection, and regional precipitation recycling. Management of green water is needed, particularly at the agricultural frontier located in the headwaters of major tributaries to the Amazon River, and home to key downstream blue-water users and ecosystem services, including domestic and industrial users, as well as aquatic ecosystems.

We performed a Water Footprint Sustainability Assessment (WFSA) in the Xingu Basin of Mato Grosso (XBMT), Brazil, with the objectives of (1) tracking blue (as surface water) and green water (as soil moisture regenerated by precipitation) consumption in recent years (2000, 2014); and (2) evaluating agricultural intensification options for future years (2030, 2050) considering the effects of deforestation and climate change on water availability in the basin. The agricultural sector was the largest consumer of water in the basin despite there being almost no irrigation of cropland or pastures. In addition to water use by crops and pasture grass, water consumption attributed to cattle production included evaporation from roughly 9463 ha of small farm reservoirs used to provide drinking water for cattle in 2014. The WFSA showed that while blue and green water consumptive uses were within sustainable limits in 2014, deforestation, cattle confinement, and the use of irrigation to increase cropping frequency could drive water use to unsustainable levels in the future. While land management policies and practices should strive for protection of the remaining natural vegetation, increased agricultural production will require reservoir and irrigation water management to reduce the potential threat of blue water scarcity in the dry season. In addition to providing general guidance for future water allocation decisions in the basin, our study offers an interpretation of blue and green water scarcities with changes in land use and climate in a rapidly evolving agricultural frontier.

The Pantanal is the largest wetland in the world and yet little is known about the variability in carbon (C) dynamics across its flood seasons. We examined the effect of inundation on the C cycle in the 2013–2015 flood cycles illustrated by dissolved CO₂, CH₄, organic C (DOC) concentration measurements, and optical properties of dissolved organic matter (DOM) evaluated by absorbance and fluorescence spectroscopy with parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC). During the 2015 flood cycle, pCO₂ varied between 5973 and 14,292 µatm, with pCH₄ concentrations ranging between 2956 and 51,675 µatm respectively, with high temporal variability for both gases. The supersaturation of CO₂ and CH₄ in relation to the atmospheric equilibrium caused the system to behave as a net source of CO₂ and CH₄ to the atmosphere with evasion rates of 320 mg CO₂ m⁻² d⁻¹ and 20 mg CH₄ m⁻² d⁻¹, respectively. Mean DOC concentration was 7.0 ± 0.4 mg L⁻¹ and did not differ between flood cycles. Higher concentrations of DOC were measured at the start (rising floodwaters) and at the end (receding floodwaters) of flood cycles, while lower DOC concentrations were observed during the peak flood. The PARAFAC analysis indicated the presence of five DOM components: humic (C1 and C2) and fulvic type material (C3) showed the highest relative abundance (68.5% of the total PARAFAC component fluorescence), as well as protein-like material (C4 and C5) derived from microorganisms. Our measured diffusive flux levels were below the range of emissions found for wetlands and floodplains for CO₂, but were slightly higher for CH₄ relative to other studies in lakes and seasonally flooded areas of the Pantanal. The large variations in concentrations of CO₂, CH₄ and DOC and the optical properties of DOM during the course of each flood cycle suggest a close relationship between carbon and water cycles in this tropical wetland.

The state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, has experienced rapid land use changes from the expansion of rain-fed agriculture (primarily soybean and pasture). This study presents changes to evapotranspiration contributions from terrestrial ecosystems in Mato Grosso over the 2000-9 period. Instead of focusing on land use change to infer hydrologic change, in this paper we assess hydrologic changes using remote sensing, meteorological and agricultural production data to determine the rainforest, crop and pasture components of total evapotranspiration. Humid tropical rainforest evapotranspiration represented half of the state's total evapotranspiration in 2000 despite occupying only 40% of the total land area. Annual evapotranspiration fluxes from rainforest declined at a rate of 16.2 km3 y−1 (R2 = 0.82, p-value < 0.01) as a result of deforestation between 2000 and 2009, representing a 25% decline in rainforest evapotranspiration since 2000. By 2009, rainforest cover accounted for only 40% of total evapotranspiration. Over the same period, crop evapotranspiration doubled, but this increase was offset by a decline in pasture evapotranspiration. Pasture fluxes were at least five times larger than crop evapotranspiration fluxes in 2000-9, with increases spatially focused at the agricultural frontier. The results highlight the expanding appropriation of soil moisture stocks for use in Mato Grosso's rain-fed agroecosystems.

As commodities enter supply chains, consumers rely on distant freshwater sources to ensure continued supply. This information often lacks the traceability and granularity required to assess the reliance of supply chains on specific river basins and their level of water scarcity. Here, we quantify the volume and source of freshwater for the production and export of Brazilian soy and beef to China and the EU, together with deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions for the 2015–2017 period. Both sectors mainly rely on rainfed systems, but also soy irrigation and a combination of cattle drinking and evaporation from reservoirs serving as the drinking source. About 20% and 50% of the freshwater required for exports to China and the EU, respectively, rely on river basins with high or critical water scarcity. Our study further shows how a multi-indicator assessment is key to guiding decisions in commodity sectors towards sustainable production and supply chains. A portion of Brazilian soy and beef exports to China and the EU rely on river basins with high or critical water scarcity, emphasising the need for multi-indicator assessments to guide decisions towards sustainable production and supply chains, according to an analysis of water use with deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions during 2015–2017.

PurposeLife cycle assessment (LCA) has been used to assess freshwater-related impacts according to a new water footprint framework formalized in the ISO 14046 standard. To date, no consensus-based approach exists for applying this standard and results are not always comparable when different scarcity or stress indicators are used for characterization of impacts. This paper presents the outcome of a 2-year consensus building process by the Water Use in Life Cycle Assessment (WULCA), a working group of the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative, on a water scarcity midpoint method for use in LCA and for water scarcity footprint assessments.MethodsIn the previous work, the question to be answered was identified and different expert workshops around the world led to three different proposals. After eliminating one proposal showing low relevance for the question to be answered, the remaining two were evaluated against four criteria: stakeholder acceptance, robustness with closed basins, main normative choice, and physical meaning.Results and discussionThe recommended method, AWARE, is based on the quantification of the relative available water remaining per area once the demand of humans and aquatic ecosystems has been met, answering the question “What is the potential to deprive another user (human or ecosystem) when consuming water in this area?” The resulting characterization factor (CF) ranges between 0.1 and 100 and can be used to calculate water scarcity footprints as defined in the ISO standard.ConclusionsAfter 8 years of development on water use impact assessment methods, and 2 years of consensus building, this method represents the state of the art of the current knowledge on how to assess potential impacts from water use in LCA, assessing both human and ecosystem users’ potential deprivation, at the midpoint level, and provides a consensus-based methodology for the calculation of a water scarcity footprint as per ISO 14046.

Forest to pasture land use change following deforestation in Southern Amazonia can result in changes to stream water quality. However, some pasture streams have riparian forest buffers, while others are dammed for farm ponds. Stream corridor management can have differential effects on hydrology and dissolved organic matter (DOM) characteristics. We examined rainfall-runoff patterns and DOM characteristics in a pasture catchment with a forested riparian buffer, and an adjacent catchment with an impoundment. Total streamflow was 1.5 times higher with the riparian buffer, whereas stormflow represented 20% of total discharge for the dammed stream versus 13% with buffer. Stream corridor management was also the primary factor related to DOM characteristics. In the impounded catchment, DOM was found to be less structurally complex, with lower molecular weight compounds, a lesser degree of humification, and a larger proportion of protein-like DOM. In the catchment with a forested buffer, DOM was dominated by humic-like components, with fluorescence characteristics indicative of DOM derived from humified soil organic matter under native vegetation. Our results suggest that differences in stream corridor management can have important implications for carbon cycling in headwater pasture catchments, and that such changes may have the potential to influence water quality downstream in the Amazon basin.