MapBiomas is a collaborative network formed by NGOs, universities, and technology startups, which reveals the transformations in the Brazilian territory through science, making knowledge about land use accessible to seek conservation and combat changes in climate. It has produced annual land cover and land use mapping and monitors surface water and fire scars monthly with data from 1985. The project also validates and produces reports for each deforestation event detected in Brazil since January 2019 with the product MapBiomas Alert.

OUR PURPOSE

Reveal transformations in the Brazilian territory through science, with precision, agility and quality and to make knowledge about land use accessible, in order to pursue conservation and sustainable management of the natural resources as a way to fight climate changes.

INITIATIVE CHARACTERISTICS

Networking with institutions responsible for different biomes and cross-cutting themes in order to optimize solutions Distributed and automated data processing in partnership with Google Earth Engine. Work-oriented to generate an open and multipliable platform, with the possibility of application in other countries and contexts. Collaborative platform - designed to incorporate contributions from the scientific community and others interested in collaborating.
Processamento distribuído e automatizado dos dados através de parceria com Google Earth Engine.
Networking with institutions responsible for different biomes and cross-cutting themes in order to optimize solutions Distributed and automated data processing in partnership with Google Earth Engine. Work-oriented to generate an open and multipliable platform, with the possibility of application in other countries and contexts. Collaborative platform - designed to incorporate contributions from the scientific community and others interested in collaborating.
Plataforma colaborativa – desenhada para incorporar e acolher as contribuições da comunidade científica e demais interessados em colaborar.

ORIGIN

The Brazilian Annual Land Use and Land Cover Mapping Project (MapBiomas) was born in a seminar held in March 2015, São Paulo. Invited by SEEG / OC, remote sensing and vegetation mapping specialists were asked the following question: "Is it possible to produce annual land use and land cover maps, for the entire country, in a significantly cheaper, faster and more updated way, compared to current methods and practices, allowing the possibility of recovering the history of the last decades?"
The answer was yes, as long as there was unprecedented processing power and a high degree of process automation, plus the participation of a community of experts in each biome and cross-cutting themes.
From this diagnosis, a contact with Google was established and generated a technical cooperation term to develop the initiative based on the Google Earth Engine platform. Specifically, the project started in July 2015 with a training of the MapBiomas team on Google Earth Engine in Mountain View, California.