Land-change trajectories of brazilian amazon wetlands across tenure regimes

Brazilian Amazon wetlands regulate carbon, hydrology, and biodiversity at continental scales, yet their vulnerability to land use and land cover change (LULCC) remains poorly understood. Here, we integrate open access datasets to evaluate wetland transformation across the Brazilian Amazon from 1985 to 2024, analyzing how deforestation, human-modified wetland, vegetation regrowth and burned area vary across land tenure regimes. We show that human-modified wetland reached 6.16% of total wetland area by 2024, with a 28.9% increase over the last decade. In the southern sub-basins, settlement projects and public lands act as hotspots for deforestation and human-modified wetland. Notably, the Trombetas sub-basin has emerged as a northern pressure hotspot, with human-modified wetland comparable to the southern sub-basins. In the Negro sub-basin, wetland is characterized by low deforestation and human-modified areas but shows the largest registered burned area. Vegetation regrowth remains consistently below deforestation rates across all tenure categories. Effective conservation strategies should therefore combine tenure regularization and incentive planning in southern sub-basins with specialized fire management in the climate-sensitive Negro sub-basin. Brazilian Amazon wetlands need urgent attention and investment in bioeconomic activities that preserve their ecological integrity.