Environmental assessment of agriculture at a regional scale in the Pampas of Argentina.

Governments need good information to design policies. However, in the Argentine Pampas there are neither sufficient knowledge on environmental issues, nor clear perception of environmental alterations across space and time. The general objective of this work was to provide decision makers with a scientifically sound set of indicators aiming at the assessment of current status and future trends in the rural environment of this sensitive region. As driving criteria to select indicators, we assumed that they had to be sound, simple to calculate, easy to understand, and easily applicable by decision makers. They are related closely to significant ecological structures and functions. Twelve basic indicators were identified: (1) land use, (2) fossil energy use, (3) fossil energy use efficiency, (4) nitrogen (N) balance, (5) phosphorus (P) balance, (6) nitrogen contamination risk, (7) phosphorus contamination risk, (8) pesticide contamination, (9) soil erosion risk, (10) habitat intervention, (11) changes in soil carbon stock, and (12) balance of greenhouse gases. Indicators were geographically referenced using a geographic information system (GIS). The strength of this study is not in the absolute value of environmental indicators, but rather in the conceptualization of indicator and the identification of changing patterns, gradients and trends in space and time. According to our results, we can not definitely say that agriculture in the Pampas, as a whole, tends to be sustainable or not. While some indicators tend to improve, others keep stable, and the rest worsen. The relative importance among indicators must also be considered. The indicators that showed a negative net change are key to the identification of critical problems that will require special attention in the close future.