Monitoramento e detecção de desmatamento no bioma Cerrado matogrossense utilizando imagens de multisensores.

In the last decades, Brazil has become a global agricultural power and the Cerrado biome (Brazilian savanna) has been playing an important role in the Brazilian agriculture growth. To better analyze the biome human disturbance dynamics, it is necessary to develop and adopt effective methods of assessment and monitoring of land use and land cover changes. The goal is to provide adequate land cover classifications and implement an operational monitoring system in the Cerrado biome, since there is only a few attempts to control the degradation of this biome. This monitoring system can be accomplished using MODIS images, as this sensor has great potential for studies about the seasonal dynamics of Cerrado vegetation phytophysiognomies. Due to this new dynamics, the main objective of this work was to apply the PRODES and DETER like methodologies to detect and map deforestation in the Cerrado biome of Mato Grosso State, Brazil, using Landsat and MODIS data. The proposed methodology was able to detect correctly 65% of all MODIS detected polygons; this represented 74% of estimated area of deforestation. Also, it showed suitability to identify new deforested areas in both shrubland and forestland areas with a tendency to misclassify smaller polygons (< 50 ha) of deforestation

Amazon rainforests green-up with sunlight in dry season

Metabolism and phenology of Amazon rainforests significantly influence global dynamics of climate, carbon and water, but remain poorly understood. We analyzed Amazon vegetation phenology at multiple scales with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite measurements from 2000 to 2005. MODIS Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI, an index of canopy photosynthetic capacity) increased by 25% with sunlight during the dry season across Amazon forests, opposite to ecosystem model predictions that water limitation should cause dry season declines in forest canopy photosynthesis. In contrast to intact forests, areas converted to pasture showed dry-season declines in EVI-derived photosynthetic capacity, presumably because removal of deep-rooted forest trees reduced access to deep soil water. Local canopy photosynthesis measured from eddy flux towers in both a rainforest and forest conversion site confirm our interpretation of satellite data, and suggest that basin-wide carbon fluxes can be constrained by integrating remote sensing and local flux measurements

Potencial das áreas disponíveis ao cultivo de biomassa para produção de energia, nas Microrregiões Sulriograndenses de Cerro Largo, Santa Rosa e Santo Ângelo.

Despite a kind of euphoria represented by the biomass farming to energy and its transformation into biofuels, it must weigh up the suitability and the convenience of the conversion of arable land and the new agricultural frontiers in areas intended for agroenergy, not only in economic and agronomic terms, but also considering the commitments of environmental and social sustainability. In this scenario, the agroenergy planning has a great importance for the tropical developing countries, like Brazil. Thus, this article aims to present an objective and semiautomatic method, based on geotechnologies, which could be applied to a given region of interest to return the available areas with potential to energy crops. As a result, is presented a map of three micro regions of Rio Grande do Sul state (Brazil), where this approach was tested, for identifying and quantifying the territories at different levels of agroenergetic potential

Sistema de monitoramento e alerta de inundações e secas no Pantanal.

The regime of floods and droughts in the Pantanal wetlands determines the distribution and abundance of the wildlife, vegetation and ecological processes. Cattle ranching and fisheries, the main economic activities in this floodplain, are extremely influenced by and depend on this regime. The aim of this work is to propose a Monitoring and Alert System, denoted SISMONPAN, of floods and droughts in the Pantanal for a better management, conservation and decision making, especially in the case of extreme events. A ten years time series, from 2000 to 2009, of estimated satellite precipitation, river stages and flood mapping derived from MODIS surface reflectance bands processed by the unmixing spectral model was analyzed. The main hydrological compartments and their relationships were defined using previous knowledge in the region as well as correlation statistical models derived from upstream - downstream water fluxes. The power and time lag of the correlations between the water fluxes in the hydrological compartments were determined. These data, flood maps and obtained relationships were organized in a database to be used by the monitoring and alert system for the Pantanal region. The SISMONPAN was developed in PHP language using TerraView and TerraLib libraries in its architecture. The system will be available on the Internet, allowing any stakeholder to simulate possible scenarios of floods and droughts based both on the predetermined upstream-downstream water flux relationships and previous events stored in the database

Utilization of LANDSAT data to inventory the sugar cane in the state of Sao Paulo

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Size and frequency of natural forest disturbances and Amazon carbon balance

Forest inventory studies in the Amazon indicate a large terrestrial carbon sink. However, field plots may fail to represent forest mortality processes at landscape-scales of tropical forests. Here we characterize the frequency distribution of disturbance events in natural forests from 0.01 ha to 2,651 ha size throughout Amazonia using a novel combination of forest inventory, airborne lidar and satellite remote sensing data. We find that small-scale mortality events are responsible for aboveground biomass losses of B1.28 Pg C y 1 over the entire Amazon region. We also find that intermediate-scale disturbances account for losses of B0.01 Pg C y 1 , and that the largest-scale disturbances as a result of blow-downs only account for losses of B0.003 Pg C y 1 . Simulation of growth and mortality indicates that even when all carbon losses from intermediate and large-scale disturbances are considered, these are outweighed by the net biomass accumulation by tree growth, supporting the inference of an Amazon carbon sink

Toroidal flow measurements of impurity ions in QUEST ECH plasmas using multiple viewing chords emission spectroscopy

A spectroscopic system with multiple viewing chords was developed for QUEST (Q-shu University Experiment with Steady-State Spherical Tokamak) to measure the spatial distribution of ion toroidal velocities in discharges sustained by electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECH). Twenty-four viewing chords were aligned in the midplane and C III emission line spectra were measured for three types of ECH discharge under different magnetic field configurations. By applying an inversion method to the measured spectra, we evaluated the radial distributions of C2+ ion emissivity, temperature, and toroidal velocity. The error in the evaluated velocity was estimated to be less than 5 km/s. It was found that the velocity depends on the magnetic field configuration