Friday, August 28, 2020

Accumulated reduction of 87.2 million hectares, shows MapBiomas Collection 5. The updated maps and data on land cover and land use will be launched this Friday (28)

The updated maps and data from MapBiomas show that Brazil lost 87.2 million hectares of native vegetation between 1985 and 2019. This is equivalent to 10.25% of the national territory. The pace of native vegetation loss accelerated in Brazil between 2018 and 2019. This is what MapBiomas Collection 5 points out.

The historical series of maps and annual data on land cover and land use in the country, from 1985 to 2019, was presented on Friday (28) at the 5th Annual MapBiomas Seminar: Revealing Land Use in Brazil with Science and Transparency. The event was broadcast on On YouTube and Facebook.

The update of the platform, which is free and open to the public, brings new functionalities and layers of information, such as the evolution of the irrigation area, the assessment of pasture quality and the mapping of natural vegetation in regeneration throughout the country.

Data from MapBiomas Collection 5 shows that more than half of the loss of native vegetation in Brazil (44 Mha) occurred in the Amazon. In the Cerrado, the reduction was 28.5 Mha. Among the six Brazilian biomes, it was the one that lost the most native vegetation in proportional terms: 21.3%.

The Pampa also had a high rate of decrease in remaining vegetation cover: 20% (2.3 Mha). On the other hand, the area of planted forests in the Rio Grande do Sul biome grew 4.9 times.

In the Pantanal, the loss of native vegetation was 12%, with a 4.7-fold increase in the total area of planted pastures. In the Caatinga, the drop in the area of remaining vegetation was 11%, with an expansion of 26% for agriculture.

The Atlantic Forest is home to 57% of the country's urban areas. The area of urban infrastructure in the biome grew 2.5 times from 1985 to 2019; the area of agriculture doubled.

Of all the loss of natural vegetation in Brazil, including forest, savannah, grasslands and mangroves, at least 90% has been taken up by agriculture, which has expanded by 78 million hectares (43% growth since 1985).

MapBiomas Collection 5: more data, more depth, more transparency

Among the new features of Collection 5 are data on deforestation and regeneration, such as the rate of loss of native vegetation by biome and views of the territories where there is proportionally more secondary vegetation.

Although 66.8% of the country's territory is covered by native vegetation, this does not mean that these areas are preserved. "The MapBiomas survey shows that at least 9.3% of all natural vegetation in Brazil is secondary, i.e. areas that have already been deforested and converted for human use at least once," explains Tasso Azevedo, general coordinator of MapBiomas. "Of the area that has never been deforested, there is a fraction that has already been degraded by fire or predatory logging. Quantifying this process of forest degradation is one of the next challenges we will face," he adds.

The monitoring of agricultural areas included data on irrigation, temporary crops such as soybeans and sugarcane, and perennial crops, as well as improvements in the mapping of pasture and agriculture in Brazil.

Among the experimental and unprecedented works is an assessment of pasture quality in Brazil for the years 2010 and 2018. "The data shows that there has been significant progress. The area of pasture with signs of degradation fell from 72% to just over 60% in eight years," says UFG professor and MapBiomas pasture team coordinator Laerte Ferreira. Understanding the degree of pasture degradation is fundamental both for controlling greenhouse gas emissions and for improving productivity and reducing deforestation pressure in the biomes. "Degraded pastures emit carbon, while well-managed pastures capture carbon from the soil," he explains.

MapBiomas' annual land cover and land use maps of Brazil have a resolution of 30 meters (each pixel represents an area of 30 meters x 30 meters). The collection can be downloaded and used in geographic information systems or accessed via the web platform available at plataforma.mapbiomas.org. You can view the data in territorial sections for biomes, states, municipalities, indigenous lands, conservation units, transport infrastructure, energy, mining and river basins; map modules and statistics on deforestation/suppression and recovery of forests and native vegetation in all the country's biomes; as well as infographics and a wall map of Brazil and each biome. The tool is public and free.

Webinars will delve into the data of Collection 5 by biome and cross-cutting themes

In September and October, MapBiomas will hold two webinars a week to present the new features of the 5 Collection by biome and cross-cutting themes, debating the data collected with experts and users of the platform.

"The webinars will allow for a more in-depth debate on the situation and evolution of activities in each biome, qualifying the debate on the sustainable use of Brazilian territory," says Júlia Shimbo, IPAM researcher and scientific coordinator of MapBiomas.

The online events will take place on Tuesdays and Fridays between September 4 and October 9, always from 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon, and will be broadcast on YouTube.

• Amazon (04.09)
• Caatinga (08.09)
• Cerrado (11.09)
• Atlantic Forest (15.09)
• Pastaure (18.09)
• Pampa (22.09)
• Pantanal (25.09)
• Coastal Zone
• Fire (02.10)
• Agriculture, Irrigation, Forest Plantation (06.10)
• Cities, Infrastructure and Mining (09.10)

Sign up for webinars: https://bit.ly/VseminarioMapBiomas

About MapBiomas: a multi-institutional initiative involving universities, NGOs and technology companies, focused on monitoring transformations in land cover and land use in Brazil. This platform is today the most complete, up-to-date and detailed spatial database of land use in one country available in the world. Other MapBiomas initiatives are under development in Indonesia, the entire Pan-Amazon region, as well as Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay. All MapBiomas data, maps, methods and codes are available publicly and free of charge on the initiative's website: mapbiomas.org

Information for the press: imprensa@mapbiomas.org

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Github: @mapbiomas-brazil