ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. For. Glob. Change
Sec. Tropical Forests
This article is part of the Research TopicWater-Related Ecosystems in Drylands: Water Dynamics, Carbon Storage and Resilience to Climate Change and Human ActionsView all 3 articles
Multitemporal assessment of changes in land cover associated with water transfers in dry forests: Case study of the Chongón-El Azúcar system (Ecuador)
Provisionally accepted
- 1Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral, Guayaquil, Ecuador
- 2Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Tropical dry forests (TDFs) support biodiversity and ecosystem services but are increasingly exposed to anthropogenic and climatic pressures. Interbasin water transfers (IBWTs) reconfigure hydrology and can promote land-use/land-cover (LULC) change, yet their effects on Neotropical TDFs remain poorly quantified, particularly in Ecuador. This study characterizes LULC dynamics and forest-loss drivers in tropical dry forests within the area influenced by the Chongón–El Azúcar IBWT system (Ecuador) between 2019 and 2025. Cloud-free Sentinel-2 Level-2A mosaics were compiled for both years, and five LULC classes were mapped using seven optical bands and five spectral indices (NDVI, SAVI, MNDWI, NDCI, NDBI) as predictors in a Random Forest (RF) classifier. The classifications showed very high performance (overall accuracy 97.89–100%; κ = 0.94–0.99). A transition matrix quantified gross and net LULC changes, and a pixel-based LASSO-penalised logistic regression related TDF loss to distance from the IBWT canal and spectral predictors (AUC = 0.9599). Between 2019 and 2025, TDF experienced a net loss of 1,223.77 ha, while agricultural land expanded by 756.21 ha, largely at the expense of forest, with most conversions concentrated within 0.15–0.30 km of the Chongón–Sube y Baja canal and around the El Azúcar reservoir. The turbid-water class in the reservoir increased by 145%, consistent with higher aquatic biomass and eutrophic conditions. Distance to the canal, low vegetation indices (NDVI, SAVI) and high water-and built-up–related indices (MNDWI, NDBI) significantly increased the probability of TDF loss, providing empirical support for 0.15–0.30 km ecological buffers and operational spectral thresholds to flag high-risk areas. We recommend redirecting agricultural expansion towards already transformed soils, establishing riparian buffer strips along canals and reservoirs, strengthening nutrient management and aquatic-macrophyte control, and implementing an operational satellite-based monitoring programme to inform land-use planning and conservation of Neotropical TDFs affected by IBWT projects.
Keywords: forest management, Geographic information systems (GIS), Google Earth Engine (GEE), Inter-basin water transfer (IBWT), Land use and land cover (LULC), random forest (RF), Remote sensing (RS), tropical dry forest (TDF)
Received: 01 Sep 2025; Accepted: 16 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Martínez-Angulo, Velastegui-Montoya, Chuizaca-Espinoza and Sanclemente. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Andrés Velastegui-Montoya
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.