Protected areas in tropical countries are managed under different governance regimes, the relative effectiveness of which in avoiding deforestation has been the subject of recent debates. Participants in these debates answer appeals for more strict protection with the argument that sustainable use areas and indigenous lands can balance deforestation pressures by leveraging local support to crea...

Deforestation is associated with increased atmospheric CO2 and alterations to the surface energy and mass balances that can lead to local and global climate changes. Previous modelling studies show that the global surface air temperature (SAT) response to deforestation depends on latitude, with most simulations showing that high latitude deforestation results in cooling, low latitude deforestat...

Efforts to reduce deforestation to mitigate climate change and to conserve biodiversity are taking place on a global scale. While many studies have estimated the emissions occurring from deforestation, few studies have quantified the domestic and international drivers sustaining deforestation rates. In this study we establish the link between Brazilian deforestation and production of cattle and...

The Ipswich watershed in northeastern Massachusetts, USA, is experiencing important land-use changes, which are contributing to severe environmental problems such as eutrophication, ground water depletion and loss of wildlife. The objective of this paper is to model deforestation between 1971, 1985 and 1991 in the watershed of the Ipswich River in Massachusetts, USA, where most of the forest lo...

Remote sensing technologies are increasingly used to monitor landscape change in many parts of the world. While the availability of extensive and timely imagery from various satellite sensors can aid in identifying the rates and patterns of deforestation, modelling techniques can evaluate the socioeconomic and biophysical forces driving deforestation processes. This paper briefly reviews some e...

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) is considered one of the most cost-effective strategies for mitigating climate change. However, historical deforestation and emission rates-critical inputs for setting reference emission levels for REDD+-are poorly understood. Here we use multi-source, time-series satellite data to quantify carbon emissions from deforestation ...

From 2006 to 2010, deforestation in the Amazon frontier state of Mato Grosso decreased to 30% of its historical average (1996-2005) whereas agricultural production reached an all-time high. This study combines satellite data with government deforestation and production statistics to assess land-use transitions and potential market and policy drivers associated with these trends. In the forested...

xi Acknowledgments xiii Acronyms and Abbreviations xv Executive Summary xvii 1. Motivation for the Study 1 2. Deforestation and Land Use in Amazonia: Evidence of Large Scale Cattle Ranching 5 Temporal Trend of Deforestation 5 Spatial Patterns at the Municipal Level 6 Evolution of Land Use in Legal Amazonia 9 Contribution of Large and Small Deforested Areas to Overall Deforestation 10 Evolution ...

This study identifies drivers of deforestation in Mexico by applying Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) models to cartographic and statistical data. A wall-to-wall multitemporal GIS database was constructed incorporating digital land use/land cover maps for 2002 and 2007; along with ancillary data (road network, settlements, topography and socioeconomical parameters). The database analysi...

Global efforts to reduce tropical deforestation rely heavily on the establishment of protected areas. Measuring the effectiveness of these areas is difficult because the amount of deforestation that would have occurred in the absence of legal protection cannot be directly observed. Conventional methods of evaluating the effectiveness of protected areas can be biased because protection is not ra...