An Integrated Analysis of Ecology and Land Use and Land Cover Dynamics in Eastern Amazônia
Ima Célia
Guimarães
Vieira, Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, ima@museu-goeldi.br
(Presenting)
Land use analysis is central to our understanding of the role that deforestation processes play in the terrestrial biosphere as a source and sink of atmospheric CO2, and it also helps us to advance towards modeling the links between terrestrial and atmospheric processes and to predict scenarios and support policies. By looking at long and short-term rates of change and its spatial distribution, land use analysis provides a way to discriminate the role of different variables and their importance at different scales. Our approach to land use and cover change analysis combines studies from LBA and GEOMA (a Brazilian research network) initiatives. These use different approaches depending on the question, scale and levels of interest, and availability of data. Some of our results from LBA, contrary to previous expectations, show that landscapes which were colonized and initially deforested several decades ago display a fast dynamic change of land use and land cover that influences biodiversity and C dynamics and that induces initiatives to develop ways to explore better the remaining natural resources. From GEOMA we have preliminary results showing a rapid deforestation process in a new recent frontier in Para state associated with slavery and illegal activities. The understanding of all these aspects in each of these distinctive patterns may contribute to the development of strong public policies leading toward sustainable development of new and old frontiers in the Brazilian Amazonia.