Title :
Assessing deforestation related carbon emission in the Brazilian Savanna based on moderate resolution imagery
Author :
Ferreira, Nilson Clementino ; Ferreira, Laerte Guimarães ; Ferreira, Manuel Eduardo ; Bustamante, Mercedes ; Ometto, Jean
Author_Institution :
Image Process. & GIS Lab., Fed. Univ. of Goias, Goias, Brazil
Abstract :
The Brazilian Cerrado is the second largest biome in South America, comprising an area of approximately 2 million km" or 24% of the Brazilian territory. In spite of its important role in carbon fluxes and storage, this biome has been facing intensive, fast-pace, agro-pastoral land use, as the occurrence of favorable topography and soils of easy management enabled highly-mechanized, rainfed grain and cattle meat productions for exportation. This paper presents an overview of a methodological approach for assessing carbon emission caused by deforestation in the Brazilian Cerrado biome, based on multi-temporal and multi-thematic analysis. Preliminary results, based on the 250m Terra-MODIS normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) images, suggest that about 45 million tons of carbon were emitted due to the 2008 2009 clearings in Cerrado biome.
Keywords :
climate mitigation; geophysical image processing; soil; terrain mapping; topography (Earth); vegetation mapping; Brazilian Cerrado biome; Brazilian savanna; Brazilian territory; MODIS vegetation indices; South America; Terra- MODIS normalized difference vegetation index images; agropastoral land use; carbon emission; carbon fluxes; carbon storage; cattle meat productions; moderate resolution imagery; multitemporal analysis; multithematic analysis; rainfed grain; soils; Carbon; Carbon dioxide; Ecosystems; Indexes; MODIS; Soil; Vegetation mapping; Brazilian Cerrado; MODIS vegetation indices; carbon emission; deforestation;
Conference_Titel :
Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2011 IEEE International
Conference_Location :
Vancouver, BC
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4577-1003-2
DOI :
10.1109/IGARSS.2011.6049238
