Identifying Land Use Change Trajectories in Brazil’s Agricultural Frontier

Adeline M Maciel,Michelle C A Picoli,Gilberto Camara,Lubia Vinhas

doi:10.3390/land9120506

Abstract

Many of the world’s agricultural frontiers are located in the tropics. Crop and cattle expansion in these regions has a strong environmental impact. This paper examines land use and land cover transformations in Brazil, where large swaths of natural vegetation are being removed to make way for agricultural production. In Brazil, the land use dynamics are of great interest regarding the country’s sustainable development and climate mitigation actions, leading to the formulation and implantation of public policies and supply chain interventions to reduce deforestation. This paper uses temporal trajectory analysis to discuss the patterns of agricultural practices change in the different biomes of Mato Grosso State, one of Brazil’s agricultural frontiers. Taking yearly land use and cover classified images from 2001 to 2017, we identified, quantified, and spatialized areas of stability, intensification, reduction, interchange, and expansion of single and double cropping. The LUC Calculus was used as a tool to extract information about trajectories and trajectories of change. Over two decades, the land use change trajectories uncover the interplay between forest removal, cattle raising, grain production, and secondary vegetation regrowth. We observed a direct relationship between the conversion of forest areas to pasture and of pasture to agriculture areas in the Amazon portion of the Mato Grosso State in different periods. Our results enable a better understanding of trends in agricultural practices.

Highlights

Understanding land use dynamics in Brazil is essential to derive policies for sustainable development and climate mitigation
The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the materials and methods used in this study; we describe the study area, data set, description about the patterns of agricultural practices change, and review of the formalism for a reason about land use change trajectories
Analyzing the land use and land cover areas (Figure 3), we observed that the Natural Vegetation in the Mato Grosso State had a decrease of ≈3% between 2001 and 2017

Summary

Introduction

Understanding land use dynamics in Brazil is essential to derive policies for sustainable development and climate mitigation. Land grabbing, illegal exploitation of natural resources, and speculation of public lands significantly increased Brazil’s deforestation [1,2]. Sound policies that balance forest protection and agricultural production need to consider the long- and medium-term land use conversion trends in the region [4,5]. In Brazil, farmland demand is an essential driver for deforestation, with forest areas being replaced by agriculture and cattle ranching [6,7]. The land can be converted to crop production, kept as pasture for cattle, or temporarily abandoned. When farmers buy pasture areas to convert to agriculture, they might not realize the natural vegetation

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion