Summary: The land use change characterized by the conversion of native vegetation and forests to pastures and agricultural crops is one of the biggest drivers of deforestation in tropical regions. At the expense of expanding livestock production and soybeans cultivation, the Amazon and Cerrado biomes in Brazil suffer from accelerated deforestation and losses of biodiversity. The state of Mato Grosso is one of the largest agricultural frontiers in the world and is one of the largest producers of commodities in the country. For understand this land use dynamics, the objective of this work was to evaluate the historic of land use in the state of Mato Grosso (1985 to 2019), using data from Mapbiomas. Thus, it was produced maps representing use in the years 1985 and 2019, which provide information on the expansion of agricultural crops and pastures on native vegetation. It was observed that native vegetation reduced area, with a conversion of 22.1 Mha or 28% loss between 1985 and 2019, while the pasture grew 165% with an area of 12.8 Mha. The agriculture class expanded by 349% (9 Mha) in relation to 1985. Therefore, the analyzed data set provides relevant information to understand the impact of land use in the state of Mato Grosso due to the expansion of agribusiness in Brazil.

Publication year: 2020

Types of publication: Paper in annals and proceedings

Unit: Embrapa Soils