Characterization of the agriculture occupation in the cerrado biome using modis time-series

Abstract

This paper aims to characterize the agriculture expansion in the Cerrado biome using time-series data of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor. The study area is the municipality of Lús Eduardo Magalhães (Bahia State, Brazil), with recent growth of agribusiness. The methodology can be subdivided into the following steps: 1) noise reduction, 2) endmembers identification, and 3) mixing linear analysis. In the noise reduction was applied the following procedures: 1) moving median filter; 2) Minimum Noise Fraction (MNF) transformation, and 3) Inverse MNF transformation. The results provided a significant noise reduction, besides eliminating the atmospheric interferences. Three endmembers were identified: 1) Natural Vegetation; 2) Agriculture; 3) Change Areas (conversion). We used the linear mixture analysis with the selected endmembers to generate fraction images. These images evidenced the agriculture expansion from west to east. These methods overcame the spatial resolution restrictions and evidenced the potential for discriminating the phenology of growing agricultural crops. © 2013 Sociedade Brasileira de Geofísica.