Tractor-trailer truckslin e up along a red and muddy earthen road. Large vinyl tarpaulins secured by ropes cover the open-topped hoppers of each one. Truck drivers hang out and prepare simple meals using stoves and kitchen utensils contained in a compact box built into the side of the truck cab. It’s early March, still the middle of a lush and highly predictable rainy season. Th e trucks wait for their turn and then enter a large modern compound with a football fi eld–sized building where they are loaded with recently harvested and dried soybeans and weighed.
Watershed responses to Amazon soya bean cropland expansion and intensification
Watershed responses to Amazon soya bean cropland expansion and intensification
The expansion and intensification of soya bean agriculture in southeastern Amazonia can alter watershed hydrology and biogeochemistry by changing the land cover, water balance and nutrient inputs. Several new insights on the responses of watershed hydrology and biogeochemistry to deforestation in Mato Grosso have emerged from recent intensive field campaigns in this region.