IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/31550.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Estimating the Spatial Amplification of Damage Caused by Degradation in the Amazon

Author

Listed:
  • Rafael Araujo
  • Juliano Assunção
  • Marina Hirota
  • José A. Scheinkman

Abstract

The Amazon rainforests have been undergoing unprecedented levels of human-induced disturbances. In addition to local impacts, such changes are likely to cascade following the eastern-western atmospheric flow generated by trade winds. We propose a model of spatial and temporal interactions created by this flow to estimate the spread of local disturbances to downwind locations along atmospheric trajectories. The spatial component captures cascading effects propagated by neighboring regions while the temporal component captures persistence. All these network effects can be described by a single matrix, acting as a spatial multiplier that amplifies local disturbances. This matrix can be used to easily map where the damage of an initial forest disturbance is amplified and propagated to. We identify regions that are likely to cause the largest impact throughout the basin, and those that are the most vulnerable to shocks caused by remote deforestation. On average, the presence of cascading effects mediated by winds doubles the impact of an initial damage. However, there is heterogeneity in this impact. While damage in some regions does not propagate, in others amplification may reach 250%.

Suggested Citation

  • Rafael Araujo & Juliano Assunção & Marina Hirota & José A. Scheinkman, 2023. "Estimating the Spatial Amplification of Damage Caused by Degradation in the Amazon," NBER Working Papers 31550, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31550
    Note: EEE PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w31550.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31550. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.