O uso do sensoriamento remoto na detecção de alterações no Cerrado da região de Matopiba no município de Balsas-MA

Abstract

Over the past thirty years, the Cerrado biome has been impacted by the expansion of agribusiness in Brazil, which in turn directly contributes to the reduction of native vegetation in the biome. In this sense, Matopiba emerges as a region formed by municipalities in the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia. The region has gained significant prominence in the agricultural expansion in the Cerrado, becoming one of the main agricultural hubs in Brazil. However, between 2000 and 2014, a large portion of the agricultural expansion in the Matopiba region occurred over approximately 2.08 million hectares of native vegetation. Thus, the aim of this study is to analyze and evaluate the impacts resulting from changes in land use and land cover in the municipality of Balsas - MA, caused by agricultural exploitation in the Matopiba region. To this end, a review of data provided by the DETER Cerrado and MapBiomas systems was conducted, based on the Annual Deforestation Report. In addition, images exported from the collection available on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) of the Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS satellite were used, and the NDVI spectral index was applied via GEE to verify areas with exposed soil. Finally, the QGIS software was used for data processing and the elaboration of cartographic products. Through the analyses, it was observed that between 2018 and 2022, the expansion of agribusiness in the municipality led to the deforestation of approximately 110,496.3 hectares, with the years 2021 and 2022 accounting for approximately 61% of the total analyzed. Thus, there is a need for improvements in public policies to control deforestation in order to ensure the preservation of the Cerrado biome.