Resumen

TERUYA, Jorgelina; MASTRANTONIO, Leandro  y  PORTELA, José. Evaluación biofísica de servicios ecosistémicos en la cuenca del Arroyo Grande, Tunuyán, Mendoza. Ecol. austral [online]. 2017, vol.27, n.1, suppl.1, pp.113-122. ISSN 1667-782X.

The Arroyo Grande basin (Valle de Uco, Tunuyán, Mendoza) is an area that shows major changes in the use of natural resources, primarily generated by new investments for wine-grape production, and facilitated by the application of pressurized irrigation. Private decisions, as well as a diversity of criteria for environmental management, prevailed in those changes. In order to evaluate the functional capacity of the two major ecosystems identified, shrubland and agroecosystem, and their relative provision of ecosystem services (ES) in the Arroyo Grande basin, we applied a methodology based on the ECOSER 1.0 protocol, using a geographic information system. Using biophysical information from the area, we identified and mapped the dominant ecosystems types (TDE). We considered four ecosystem functions (EF) and eight ES. The identification of each ES and its relative provision was calculated as a linear combination of the flow of each EF weighted by their relative contribution to the corresponding ES. Finally, through the generation of maps, we evaluated spatially ES provision. Results show the agroecosystem provides a larger number of ES, including agricultural production as crops, livestock and forestry. The shrubland provides a greater proportion of supporting and provisioning ES, related to water supply and quality, which, in turn, are essential for the agroecosystem. In conclusion, there are differences in the provision of ES according to the ecosystems, and those ES provided by the agroecosystem depend on another ES previously provided by the shrubland.

Palabras clave : Ecosystem functions; Spatial variability; Agricultural frontier.