Land use change, management, and CO2 balance of second-crop corn in Brazil

Land use change, management, and CO2 balance of second-crop corn in Brazil | 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 Land use change, management, and CO2 balance of second-crop corn in Brazil Danilo Francisco Trovo Garofalo, Renan Milagres Novaes, Daniel Alves Aguiar, and 6 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7358018/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 9 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Corn is Brazil's second most cultivated crop (21 Mha in 2023, 80% as a second crop), vital for food, feed, and biofuels. This study provides the first country-level mapping of second-crop corn for Brazil, with results for 2023 and the previous land use/cover 20 and 10 years before. Based on these, we estimated CO 2 balance from direct land use change (dLUC) and agricultural management practices (MP). Our results show that the share of corn area that was natural vegetation was 12.9% in 2003–2023 and reduced to 3.6% in 2013–2023 period. 20-year dLUC emissions ranged from 0.6 to 0.9 tCO 2 ⋅ha − 1 ⋅year − 1 , depending on the allocation method, but consistently lower than in the literature. Carbon removals from MP ranged from 0.15 to 0.2 tCO 2 .ha − 1 .yr − 1 , mitigating 20% of dLUC. dLUC + MP balance for second-crop corn ethanol ranged from 2.3–5.3 gCO 2 ⋅MJ − 1 in 2003–2023, reducing to 0.32–1.5 in the more recent 2013–2023 period. Earth and environmental sciences/Climate sciences Biological sciences/Ecology Earth and environmental sciences/Ecology Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental sciences Biological sciences/Plant sciences DLUC 2nd crop corn corn ethanol management practices carbon footprint Full Text Additional Declarations Competing interest reported. FS Fueling Sustainability, a Brazilian corn ethanol production company, has funded the mapping of second-crop corn and the participation of Agroicone and Serasa Experian. To minimize potential conflict of interest with FS Sustainability, the company did not have access to the carbon footprinting results of this study nor to the content of the paper prior to its publication. In addition, other measures were also taken: the use of public databases from Brazilian organizations of international prestige, such as Mapbiomas; the use of carbon stock data from the BRLUC 2.1 method, predominantly peer-reviewed literature and the IPCC database; the analysis covers all Brazilian regions, including areas that do not correspond to those of the funding company. In addition, hypotheses, methods and previous results were submitted to the scrutiny of independent expert researchers and the manuscript was submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. Supplementary Files SupplementaryMaterialS1.Samples2ndcropcornGarofalo25.zip SupplementaryMaterialS2.BalanceofCdLUCMP2ndcropcornGarofalo25.xlsx SupplementaryMaterialS3.EthanolCorndLUCMPemissionsgCO2porMJGarofalo25.xlsx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 10 Nov, 2025 Reviews received at journal 05 Nov, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 10 Oct, 2025 Reviews received at journal 16 Sep, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 26 Aug, 2025 Reviewers invited by journal 19 Aug, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 17 Aug, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 13 Aug, 2025 First submitted to journal 12 Aug, 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. 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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-7358018","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":505655232,"identity":"176b2e09-c8b5-42cd-aa0a-7f175ff00559","order_by":0,"name":"Danilo Francisco Trovo Garofalo","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA0UlEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDCCA0D0gMEGxiZWSwJDGolaGBIYDpPgLr7jZw8eSKg4Ly8fffjggR8Vd+QY2A8f3YBPi+SZvIQDCWduG248l5ZwsOfMM2MGnrS0G/i0GBzIMTiQ2HabcWMPj8FhxrbDiQ0SPGb4tZx/A9Jyzh6mpZ6wlhtgWw4kzueBaElgIKRF8gbQloQzyckbeNhAfjls2EbIL3znc4w/fKiws53fw3z4w4+Kw/L87IeP4dWCcOEBKIONKOUgIN9AtNJRMApGwSgYaQAAUmZWOkBo0GoAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"Agroicone","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Danilo","middleName":"Francisco Trovo","lastName":"Garofalo","suffix":""},{"id":505655233,"identity":"50523dcd-a19c-452e-b490-cf9f1f437253","order_by":1,"name":"Renan Milagres Novaes","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Embrapa Meio Ambiente","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Renan","middleName":"Milagres","lastName":"Novaes","suffix":""},{"id":505655234,"identity":"53875c85-6c18-4e1b-8710-94eb8e6e227f","order_by":2,"name":"Daniel Alves Aguiar","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Serasa Experian","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Daniel","middleName":"Alves","lastName":"Aguiar","suffix":""},{"id":505655235,"identity":"3147f17b-0a49-495f-805a-f79c1cf15c2d","order_by":3,"name":"Luciane Chiodi Bachion","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Agroicone","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Luciane","middleName":"Chiodi","lastName":"Bachion","suffix":""},{"id":505655236,"identity":"bd205ba3-e72b-4799-bf5d-3faba5ddf184","order_by":4,"name":"Ricardo A. 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FS Fueling Sustainability, a Brazilian corn ethanol production company, has funded the mapping of second-crop corn and the participation of Agroicone and Serasa Experian. To minimize potential conflict of interest with FS Sustainability, the company did not have access to the carbon footprinting results of this study nor to the content of the paper prior to its publication. In addition, other measures were also taken: the use of public databases from Brazilian organizations of international prestige, such as Mapbiomas; the use of carbon stock data from the BRLUC 2.1 method, predominantly peer-reviewed literature and the IPCC database; the analysis covers all Brazilian regions, including areas that do not correspond to those of the funding company. 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