- Title Information
- Title
- Land Use Change Across the Brazilian Cerrado, 2001-2013
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Spera, Stephanie Anne
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- creator
- Origin Information
- Copyright Date
- 2017
- Physical Description
- Extent
- xx, 182 p.
- digitalOrigin
- born digital
- Note
- Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2017
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Mustard, Johnathon
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Director
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- VanWey, Leah
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Director
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Lynch, Amanda
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Reader
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Hirth, James
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Reader
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Assuncao, Juliano
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Reader
- Name:
Corporate
- Name Part
- Brown University. Geological Sciences
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- sponsor
- Genre (aat)
- theses
- Abstract
- Over the past four decades, the Cerrado region of Brazil has transitioned from a land of sparsely inhabited forests and shrublands to an industrial agriculture powerhouse. Here, we map annual agricultural land-use change across the biome and analyze the socioeconomic and environmental drivers and consequences of these changes focusing on Mato Grosso State, Goiás State, and the Matopiba region. Chapter 1 introduces a remote sensing methodology which allows for the classification of agricultural land covers across Mato Grosso State, Brazil between 2003-2013. The data produced with this MODIS EVI phenology-based decision tree algorithm are used to analyze determinants of agricultural expansion and abandonment in the state. Agriculture both expanded and intensified throughout the region, and scarcity of ‘good’ agricultural land may be partly responsible for the slow-down in agricultural expansion during the latter half of the study period. Chapter 2 uses a modified algorithm to map agricultural land cover across the entire Cerrado. Focusing on Brazil’s newest agricultural frontier region, Matopiba, we analyze the effects of agricultural expansion on the water balance. Our results demonstrate that this agricultural expansion has led to a decrease in evapotranspiration in the region, which could be detrimental to the water balance and ecosystem functioning of both the Cerrado and Amazon. Chapter 3 uses this Cerrado-wide dataset to determine the characteristics and drivers of sugarcane expansion in the state of Goiás. Our results demonstrate that most new sugarcane land is sourced in pasture. Moreover, the expansion of sugarcane is not subject to biophysical constraints, and instead complex interactions between global and local drivers affect its expansion. Chapter 4 discusses the Cerrado as a ‘sacrifice zone’, synthesizes the results of the previous chapters, and discusses the policy implications of this work.
- Subject
- Topic
- remote sensing
- Subject
- Topic
- cerrado
- Subject
- Topic
- brazil
- Subject
- Topic
- land-use change
- Subject
- Topic
- food security
- Subject
- Topic
- climate change
- Record Information
- Record Content Source (marcorg)
- RPB
- Record Creation Date
(encoding="iso8601")
- 20170531
- Identifier:
DOI
- 10.7301/Z0ZK5F4P
- Access Condition:
rights statement
(href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
- In Copyright
- Access Condition:
restriction on access
- Collection is open for research.
- Type of Resource (primo)
- dissertations