The Guayas River, which winds its way through southern Ecuador, has long been flanked by the mangrove forests and an intricate network of creeks and streams. Now shrimp farms line its edges as well.
The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on the Landsat 8 satellite captured this image of the Guayas Estuary—one of the largest estuarine ecosystems of South America—on August 29, 2024. Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city and the nation’s main port, is home to more than 3.1 million people. Rectangular shrimp ponds are visible to the south of the city on either side of the Guayas River amidst mangrove forests. The image on the right shows the estuary in false color to emphasize the difference between the shrimp ponds (dark blue) and the surrounding mangrove vegetation (shown in red).
To create shrimp farms, trees are cleared and swamps are converted into large holding ponds. Almost 60 percent of these ponds are located where mangroves used to be, explained Stuart Hamilton, a geographer at East Carolina University. Hamilton has documented the rise of aquaculture in Ecuador using 50 years of remote sensing data.
Starting in the mid-to-late 1970s, there was a rapid growth of aquaculture in southern Ecuador. Hamilton estimates that between 1985 and 2014, the area dedicated to shrimp farming in the Guayas estuary more than doubled—from 30,000 to 64,000 hectares (74,000 to 160,000 acres). During the same period, the extent of mangroves shrank by about 20,000 hectares.
Much of the mangrove loss occurred before 1995, and the rate of deforestation has slowed since then, Hamilton added. In an effort to protect the country’s remaining forest, the Ecuadorian government created the Socio Bosque program in 2008, which pays landowners—individuals or indigenous communities—to voluntarily commit to the conservation and protection of their forests, moors, and other native vegetation. A sister initiative known as Socio Manglar—“Mangrove Partners”—aims to protect more than half of Ecuador’s existing mangroves.
The farmed shrimp industry has grown rapidly in recent decades, producing less than 100,000 metric tons globally in 1980 but more than 5 million metric tons in 2023. That year, Ecuador produced about 1.5 million metric tons of Whiteleg shrimp (Penaeus vannamei), and was the world’s top supplier of the crustacean.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Emily Cassidy.
