Integrating Earth Observation and Ecological Modeling to Advance Sustainability Assessment of Cocoa Expansion

Integrating Earth Observation and Ecological Modeling to Advance Sustainability Assessment of Cocoa Expansion | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Integrating Earth Observation and Ecological Modeling to Advance Sustainability Assessment of Cocoa Expansion Shuntian Wang, Yue Yu, Christie Walker, Jorge Perez, Wendy Francesconi, and 3 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8018772/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Revision Version 1 posted 10 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Expansion of agri-food crops (e.g., cocoa) into tropical forests threatens biodiversity and ecosystem services, yet crop-specific impacts remain poorly understood and rarely integrated directly from Earth observation to ecological models. We present a scalable framework that fuses ~10 m Sentinel-1/2 satellite imagery with supervised machine learning to generate model-ready, crop-specific maps and quantify ecological impacts. Applied to Peru's Ucayali Agroecological Living Landscape, we mapped 25,659 ha of cocoa in 2020, 68% of which directly replaced forest since 2000. This expansion reduced biodiversity by ~0.5%, eliminated ~3.0 million tonnes of carbon storage, and increased nitrogen export to runoff by ~58 tonnes per year, degrading water quality. Our globally transferable framework delivers spatially explicit, policy-relevant metrics that pinpoint ecological impact hotspots, thereby informing targeted, sustainable land management strategies in tropical agri-food landscapes. Biological sciences/Ecology Earth and environmental sciences/Ecology Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental sciences Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files SIV3.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Revision Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 02 May, 2026 Reviews received at journal 02 May, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 05 Apr, 2026 Reviews received at journal 05 Feb, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 29 Jan, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 19 Dec, 2025 Reviewers invited by journal 19 Dec, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 14 Nov, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 06 Nov, 2025 First submitted to journal 03 Nov, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8018772","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":611960607,"identity":"db715ac4-3588-4176-9c5a-3bb260fc85f0","order_by":0,"name":"Shuntian 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