Deforestation Patterns in the Southern Brazilian Amazon Watersheds
Résumé
The rapid expansion of a very active agricultural frontier in the Southern Brazilian Amazon induces high deforestation rates that influence local to global water cycles. In this study, we analysed landscape indicators derived from Brazilian MapBiomas land use maps in order to assess deforestation patterns in watersheds dominated by crop or pasture lands. Our results indicate that the proportion of forest is on average higher in watersheds where pasture prevails (53,7%) compared to watersheds where soybean prevails (42,4%). On the contrary, we also found that riparian buffers in soybean dominant watersheds are better preserved (75,7% covered by forest) than in pasture dominant watersheds (60,0% of forested area). Finally, we emphasize the benefit of monitoring land use impacts on stream reach scale, as new remote sensing technologies are under development.
