Monitoramento espaço-temporal da expansão do agronegócio na Região Oeste da Bahia como ferramenta de gestão

Abstract

The agribusiness development has been highly expressive over the years worldwide. In Brazil, this process is notably observed in the Cerrado, which has made the country one of the world leaders in agricultural production. Although providing a good subsidy for the national economy, this process is causing significant environmental impacts on the composition and configuration of the biome's natural forests, thus, we seek to investigate the influence of agribusiness advancement on the spatial configuration of native vegetation areas. The structure of this work is composed of two chapters in the form of a scientific article and a technical product. In the first chapter, we aimed to evaluate how scientific knowledge about the impacts of agribusiness on native vegetation has evolved over the years. For this, through bibliometric analysis and using the Scopus (Elsevier) database we were able to identify how the research on this theme has been conducted from 1976 to 2018 and the main contributions of the authors in this period. Thus, it was possible to evaluate both the state of science on this subject and the main knowledge gaps to be filled. The second chapter aimed to characterize the spatio-temporal dynamics of agricultural advancement in native vegetation areas. For this reason, the western region of Bahia, considered one of the main agricultural frontiers of the Brazilian Cerrado, was chosen as the ideal scenario for the development of this chapter. Through the Google Engine platform and access to Mapbiomas collection 3.0, a study of 33 years (1985 - 2017) of the study area was obtained, consisting of classified Landsat satellite images. The spatial quantification of the images was performed by applying the landscape metrics CA, PLAND, NP, LPI and ENN calculated by the “R” language algorithm package. The analysis was made from a multiscale perspective (West Bahia Region and the 24 constituent municipalities). Thus, it was possible to measure both the advance of agribusiness in the region and, to the detriment of this factor, the decline of natural forests and the fragmentation and isolation of habitats in most municipalities. Thus, the monitoring performed in this chapter is beyond being fundamental for the process of management of native forest areas impacted by agribusiness, aiming at nature conservation, was important subsidy for the elaboration of the presented technical product. The respective product is comprised of a booklet composed by the mapping of land use and land cover of each of the 24 municipalities of the western region of Bahia, as well as the respective rates of natural forest loss due to the agribusiness advance. Thus, it is expected that this booklet will serve as a tool for the decision-making processes applied to the management and conservation of the natural forests of Western Bahia.