Land use changes (1970-2020) and carbon emissions in the Colombian Llanos

Regional and local land use changes driven by the growing demands of the world population are considered prime factors contributing to the observed global climate change trends (Foley et al., 2005; Pielke et al., 2002). One major impact of such land use changes along the expanding agricultural fronts on climate is through carbon emissions from deforestation in forests and changing fire patterns, cattle densities, and vegetation biomass in Savannas. Although forests have been considered to be the key land cover component of the terrestrial carbon cycle (Ramankutty et al., 2007; Houghton, 2005), the importance of Savannas is being increasingly recognized as growing human impacts transform this biome (Grace, 2004). The global study by Goldewijk (2001) estimated that around half of the land clearing during the past three centuries has taken place in the Savanna biomes. Grace et al. (2006) estimated that worldwide Savannas are being transformed at an average rate of more than 1% per year, but reliable data on Savanna transformation rates are currently not available (see Chapter 19 for cerrado data).