Abstract
This study’s overarching aim is to establish the areal extent and characteristics of the rapid sugarcane expansion and land use change in São Paulo state (Brazil) as a result of an increase in the demand for ethanol, using Landsat type remotely sensed data. In 2003 flex fuel automobiles started to enter the Brazilian consumer market causing a dramatic expansion of sugarcane areas from 2.57 million ha in 2003 to 4.45 million ha in 2008. Almost all the land use change, for the sugarcane expansion of crop year 2008/09, occurred on pasture and annual crop land, being equally distributed on each. It was also observed that during the 2008 harvest season, the burned sugarcane area was reduced to 50% of the total harvested area in response to a protocol that aims to cease sugarcane straw burning practice by 2014 for mechanized areas. This study indicates that remote sensing images have efficiently evaluated important characteristics of the sugarcane cultivation dynamic providing quantitative results that are relevant to the debate of sustainable ethanol production from sugarcane in Brazil.
Highlights
The search for alternatives to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions has indicated the use of biofuels as a viable option, since they meet sustainability criteria
Images from January to February were favorable to identify the renovated fields once they are usually rotated with summer crops such as soybean or peanut that are quite different from sugarcane and can be identified on these images
The Landsat type images were highly suitable for mapping and evaluating the rapid expansion of sugarcane areas in São Paulo state from 2003 to 2008 when an additional area of 1.88 million ha of sugarcane was cultivated to meet the increaseing demand of ethanol to supply fuel to flex automobiles
Summary
The search for alternatives to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions has indicated the use of biofuels as a viable option, since they meet sustainability criteria. Brazil has a vast experience using ethanol, produced from sugarcane as an automotive fuel or gasoline additive [1,2]. Brazil is the world’s largest sugarcane producer, and its production is concentrated in the. According to FAO [3], for the 2007/08 crop year, Brazil produced 45% more than India which is the world’s second largest sugarcane producer (Figure 1b).
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