Changes in regulating ecosystem services and their relationship with land use changes in the Argentina Pampas

Introduction: Land use changes represent the factor with the greatest impact on terrestrial ecosystems. The conceptual framework of ecosystem services allows understanding how changes in ecosystems affect human well-being.Objective: To evaluate changes in five key ecosystem functions and two key ecosystem services in the Argentina Pampas between 2001 and 2018, and to analyze their relationship with land use changes. Materials and methods: Five ecosystem functions (soil organic carbon storage, biomass carbon storage, erosion control, soil fertility and retention of excess precipitation by vegetation cover) and two regulating ecosystem services (flood regulation and climate regulation) were mapped from 2001-2018 using biophysical models. The main land uses were characterized based on remote sensing data.Results and discussion: Ecosystem functions, except for biomass carbon storage, decreased at the regional scale between 2001 and 2018; precipitation retention by cover (40.7 %) and erosion control (35.4 %) decreased the most. Also, the ecosystem services of flood regulation and climate regulation decreased 6.78 % and 6.8 %, respectively. The spatial patterns of decrease in the levels of provision of these services were associated with the replacement of natural grasslands by cropland. Conclusions: The use of biophysical models allowed us to analyze, spatially, the dynamics of regulating ecosystem services and to evaluate their relationship with land use changes.