Land Use Changes in the Teles Pires River Basin’s Amazon and Cerrado Biomes, Brazil, 1986–2020

The Teles Pires River basin in Brazil’s center-west has recently expanded agricultural economic development at the expense of both Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savannah. We evaluated these changes occurring this over last 34 years. Maps were generated to determine land use classifications between 1986, 1991, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2011, 2015, 2020. supervised classification Landsat 5 8 images used maximum likelihood algorithm. Satellite spatial data on downloaded from United States Geological Survey validated according 1477 locations, where our research team categorized field during growth crops (+643%) pasture (+250%) 1986 2020 detrimental natural areas, such as percentage increase areas years peaked around 1996 stabilized 40% basin’s area. Land change patterns related political/economic events Brazil, forest/pasture conversions until 2011 There was greater intensity upper toward south, which northward time. Sustainable intensification is needed stabilized, frontier areas.