Mapping fractality during the process of deforestation in an Amazon tri-national frontier

Abstract

Tropical forests in the Amazon are being cleared rapidly, and road paving has stimulated this process and consequently prompted forest clearing. Fractal analysis can be used to study the spatial patterns of such developed areas, specifically by utilizing fractal dimension methodologies. However, the traditional box-counting method utilized in this approach is quite limited and often fails to characterize landscape heterogeneity, due to the problem of where to place the areas of interest or boxes on the landscape. To improve upon this limitation, we have utilized a fixed-grid scans approach and here have applied it to an example which looks at the process of deforestation across a tri-national frontier region in the Amazon. Specifically, we pixelize the entire landscape and calculate the fractal dimension of the developed areas within each pixel. The results indicate that deforestation has expanded across the landscape but with different patterns and rates. Such differences are summarized within a proposed framework which indicates the level of deforestation or development, and as such, can potentially be used to understand and regulate deforestation and its evolution over time.