Vegetation change in Brazil's dryland ecoregions and the relationship to crop production and environmental factors: Cerrado, Caatinga, and Mato Grosso, 2001-2009

Abstract

South America's drylands remain some of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet. Yet, we know very little about the dynamics of land-use and land-cover change (LUCC) in these understudied regions. Our objective is to map vegetation change in Brazil's three largest dryland ecoregions - the Cerrado, Caatinga, and Mato Grosso seasonal forests - using MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) data from 2001 to 2009 at the scale of the municipality. We then assess the relationship between changes in land use and land cover and changes in crop and animal production and environmental factors using random forest regression. Although deforestation is still the dominant transition in Mato Grosso, portions of the Cerrado and Caatinga are experiencing a return of woody vegetation. Other agricultural production systems such as sugarcane also play a key role in vegetation change dynamics, besides soybean and cattle ranching. Municipalities with low standard deviations of temperature, high annual precipitation totals, and low elevation are most likely to have undergone deforestation from 2001 to 2009. In the Cerrado, sugarcane is positively associated with woody regrowth, but these changes may be resulting in displacement deforestation in Mato Grosso. Increases in rainfall and the decline of agriculture were responsible for the return of woody vegetation in the Caatinga. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.