Burned area occurrence in agrarian reform settlement projects in the Matopiba region, Brazil

Abstract

Wildfires have been causing negative effects on ecosystems and rural communities. Among rural communities, the agrarian reform settlement projects have registered fires resulting from agricultural management inside and outside their areas. In this context, our objective was to analyze 821 settlement projects in the Matopiba region to explore the spatial-temporal dynamics of burned area occurrences. For this, we used the burned area data from MCD64A1 v006, from 2001 to 2021, and estimated the total burned area and its percentage for each settlement project per month and per year, and the frequency and trend. Based on these characteristics, we classified each settlement project to identify patterns. We identified a temporal pattern, with inter-annual variations, associated with the dry season. Also, the extension of the burned area increased significantly in the years of drought anomaly. Settlement projects with high and low fire frequency coexist in the same region. We also identified a small cluster with a positive trend in the northeast of the Matopiba region related to the surrounding agriculture expansion area. The classification based on burned area, trend and frequency is useful to select priority settlement projects for fire prevention actions.