Abstract ID: 133

A update map of Legal Amazon land cover

Accurate estimation of continental surface biophysical properties is fundamental for climate studies and weather forecast through numerical models. Although a number of land cover databases are available for South America, they all have some drawbacks for use in climate and sustainable-development research. So, an increasing effort is being dedicated to the production of land cover maps to be applied to climate models in order to improve the understanding of the complex interactions that occur between land surface and the atmosphere. In this context, the objective of this work is updates the digital land cover map of Legal Amazon obtained to be applied to climate models implemented at CPTEC/INPE. The new version of the map includes the spectral classes, which were mapped onto a land cover classification system and the results were edited to correct minor misclassifications. Also, it was added to this product the deforested area in Legal Amazon which is being regularly surveyed by INPE since 1978. The deforested area included in this map is the accumulated registered deforestation up to the year 1997. The new version includes the discrimination of secondary vegetation within the deforested areas the TM-Landsat derived map of savanna areas that were converted into agricultural land use and the urban areas, derived from the ProBio project, which are not assessed in the mentioned deforestation survey. This updated map can serve as input to regional climate models as well as a database for modeling land cover change scenarios on local and regional climate.

Session:  Feedbacks to Climate - Land cover, surface hydrology, and atmospheric feedbacks.

Presentation Type:  Poster