Analysis of pasture areas in Brazil using official data and time series of vegetation index

Gleyce Kelly Dantas Araujo Figueiredo,David Oliveira Ramin

doi:10.20396/revpibic262018345

Abstract

The temporal dynamics of pasture areas is strongly associated with the change in economic activity in the area. The impact of this transition, impacts the environmental, economic and social parameters. The evaluation of the temporal dynamics of pasture areas is extremely important for the generation of information to support decisions whether at the local or regional level, public or private. The use of satellite images and geographic information systems is completely indispensable for the evaluation of the dynamics of pasture areas over time, and this is the fact that motivates this research to identify areas of pasture in different years from official maps of land use classification and to evaluate, by NDVI series, which is associated strongly to the biomass of vegetation, the areas of retraction or increase of pasturelan areas, thus identifying the dynamics of land use transition.

Highlights

In order to observe the vegetation cover dynamics, it is possible to make use of time series of vegetation index, which allows monitoring the development of the plant in temporal scales characterizing the phenological cycle of the crop and identifying its stages of development (Bradley et al 2007; Lu et al, 2004)1
NDVI index analysed solely can be many times inconclusive, since there are more than one type of land use that can be associated with determined pattern of NDVI series
It is mandatory to say, that NDVI series must be analysed with the aid of more information

Summary

Introduction

In order to observe the vegetation cover dynamics, it is possible to make use of time series of vegetation index, which allows monitoring the development of the plant in temporal scales characterizing the phenological cycle of the crop and identifying its stages of development (Bradley et al 2007; Lu et al, 2004)1. It is possible to verify when land use change occurred. The analysis of the two products of landuse classification official projects, Probio (2002) and Terraclass (2013) have shown that, for the cerrado, there are expansion and retraction zones of pasturelands, while most parts remain the same in the two classifications. This provided delimited zones for further investigations, and five alleatory coordinates were analysed inside this zones.

Results

Conclusion