Land cover changes in the Brazilian Cerrado and Caatinga biomes from 1990 to 2010 based on a systematic remote sensing sampling approach

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe main objective of our study was to provide consistent information on land cover changes between the years 1990 and 2010 for the Cerrado and Caatinga Brazilian seasonal biomes. These areas have been overlooked in terms of land cover change assessment if compared with efforts in monitoring the Amazon rain forest. For each of the target years (1990, 2000 and 2010) land cover information was obtained through an object-based classification approach for 243 sample units (10 km  10 km size), using (E)TM Landsat images systematically located at each full degree confluence of latitude and longitude. The images were automatically pre-processed, segmented and labelled according to the following legend: Tree Cover (TC), Tree Cover Mosaic (TCM), Other Wooded Land (OWL), Other Land Cover (OLC) and Water (W). Our results indicate the Cerrado and Caatinga biomes lost (gross loss) respectively 265,595 km 2 and 89,656 km 2 of natural vegetation (TC þ OWL) between 1990 and 2010. In the same period, these areas also experienced gain of TC and OWL. By 2010, the percentage of natural vegetation cover remaining in the Cerrado was 47% and in the Caatinga 63%. The annual (net) rate of natural vegetation cover loss in the Cerrado slowed down from À0.79% yr À1 to À0.44% yr À1 from the 1990s to the 2000s, while in the Caatinga for the same periods the rate increased from À0.19% yr À1 to À0.44% yr À1 . In summary, these Brazilian biomes experienced both loss and gains of Tree Cover and Other Wooded Land; however a continued net loss of natural vegetation was observed for both biomes between 1990 and 2010. The average annual rate of change in this period was higher in the Cerrado (À0.6% yr À1 ) than in the Caatinga (À0.3% yr À1 ).

Understanding patterns of land-cover change in the Brazilian Cerrado from 2000 to 2015

“…Beuchle et al [59] reported an annual cover change of 20.60% from 2000 to 2010 for the Cerrado, a value which is similar to that detected by the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment (20.69% per year) from 2002 to 2008 [33]. Thus, the north of Minas Gerais experienced intensive clearing of the Cerrado over the last 15 years.…”

“…However, our estimates corroborate that of other studies that have detected similar levels of regeneration in other parts of the Cerrado. A recent assessment by Beuchle et al [59] estimated that 72 170 km 2 of Cerrado recovered from 2000 to 2010 (see also [3,60]). Jepson [6] detected that, between 1986 and 1999, 50% of the previously converted Cerrado in Mato Grosso state regenerated, indicating the need for accurately assessing this process in land-use and climate-change policies.…”

“…Most studies addressing LUCC in the Cerrado quantify land clearing using the net change in total cover [32,33,58], and estimates of Cerrado natural regeneration are seldom directly informed (e.g. [59]). Examination of net change alone can underestimate the extent of land clearing in the Cerrado.…”

A large historical refugium explains spatial patterns of genetic diversity in a Neotropical savanna tree species

“…The net loss of natural vegetation in the Cerrado from 1990 to 2010 was estimated to be 0Á6 % per year (Beuchle et al, 2015). Besides this rapid destruction and fragmentation, the absence of a consistent fire management policy, which has transformed several areas of savanna vegetation into forests (Durigan and Ratter, 2016), threatens the biodiversity of the Cerrado.…”

On the extent of fire-induced forest degradation in Mato Grosso, Brazilian Amazon, in 2000, 2005 and 2010

“…Cerrado biome) according to the official Brazilian national classification system (IBGE-MMA 2004). The natural vegetation in the Amazon biome consists of humid evergreen fire-sensitive forests, while the Cerrado natural vegetation is a mixture of evergreen gallery forests and open canopy fire-adapted deciduous forests, shrub and grasslands (Cochrane 2003;Pivello 2011;Beuchle et al 2015). Due to the different fire-adaptability of Cerrado and Amazon biomes, and therefore potential differences in the effects of fires, we perform all the analyses separately for the two biomes in this study.…”