Neo-humedales en las llanuras agrícolas del Chaco Seco-Espinal argentino: ¿Cómo son, dónde se originan y qué hacer con ellos?

In the last decades and as a result of rapid transformation terrestrial ecosystems, new category called ‘neo-ecosystems’ has emerged. dry plains Argentina, agricultural expansion replacing forests, woodlands natural grasslands generated water surpluses at regional scale. This excess favoured development neo-wetlands characterized by shallow tables, frequent waterlogging progressive salinization. this work, we characterize these neo-ecosystems that spontaneously occupy degraded environments reviewing bibliography in Dry Chaco-Espinal area taking El Morro basin province San Luis case study. Through temporal analysis high-resolution images, found 13 years, have tripled their extension, covering more than 15% lower basin, mainly depressed areas landscape where salinization been widespread. These showed NDVI-LANDSAT values surrounding forests (0.44±0.04 vs. 0.35±0.09) but similar to annual crops (neo-wetlands 0.35±0.09 0.37±0.13). Compared crops, presented longer growing seasons (241±54 days 194±54 days, for respectively), showing revegetation with saline tolerant species adapted environment. Finally, propose guidelines restoration use order recover functionality also ecological-productive value.