Pasture Land Cover Change in São Paulo State, Brazil

Abstract

Abstract. Pastures are complex land covers with a variety of land use systems. This land cover occupies large areas in the globe and is mainly used for livestock production. Brazil is one of the largest livestock producers and has extensive pasture areas. We analyzed the pasture land cover change of the São Paulo State between the years 2000 to 2015. São Paulo was chosen as study case due to its large industrial and agricultural importance and its expressive land cover changes over past decades. It was analyzed land covers databases generated by the Brazilian Annual Land Use and Land Cover Mapping Project (MapBiomas Project) – Collection 4. Transition matrix was generated to analyze the land cover change during the period. Gain, loss, total change, net change and swap were calculated in terms of area. Total pasture area decreased but continues the largest land cover of the São Paulo State; with 79.5% of persistence in the area. Main changes were from losses of pastures and gains in agriculture. Most of the changes to pasture came from other non vegetated areas and grassland categories. These results demonstrated the relevance of pastures areas in land cover change dynamics to address land use policy and plan future land use scenarios.

Relationship between Fire Events and Land Use Changes in the State of São Paulo, Brazil

“…The relative and absolute change was calculated for each land cover type (see Supplementary Material, Table S3). Consistent with the literature [79,80], the most significant change within the 16-year study period of LULC was the rapid increase in sugarcane production, which corresponded to a net 128% increase in the percent of land used for sugarcane cultivation. The data evaluation showed that throughout more than half of the study period, from 2002 to 2014, pasture was the most represented land cover type in SP, although there was a steady yearly decline (net 43% decrease) over that period that coincided with the increase in sugarcane.…”

“…The practice of fluctuating between pasture and agricultural land use in Brazil is an established and documented technique, which is used by farmers to maintain the greatest gains from the land [45,85]. Newer and more sustainable techniques for cultivation, which result in less land degradation [86,87], and the increased profitability of agriculture compared to pasture lands [45,79,80,88] likely contributed to these land use changes. Additionally, of all the agricultural crops identified in the classification, sugarcane and soybeans are the most profitable [47].…”

Female philopatry and unsuccessful male dispersal of a top predator in a human-modified landscape revealed by relatedness analysis

“…Only 3% of São Paulo original Cerrado cover remains (Nalon et al 2020). Most of the remaining Cerrado and Atlantic Forest vegetation is immersed in a human-dominated matrix composed of pasture and agriculture (i.e., monocultures), and surrounded by the highest density of paved roads in Brazil (Durigan et al 2007, CNT 2018, Oliveira et al 2020). Furthermore, P. concolor is the top-predator most killed by vehicle collision in this region (Abra et al 2021).…”