@Article{JasinskiMoDeShAnHa:2005:PhLaEx,
               author = "Jasinski, Ellen and Morton, Douglas and DeFries, Ruth and 
                         Shimabukuro, Yosio Edemir and Anderson, Liana and Hansen, Mathew",
          affiliation = "University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD, United 
                         States",
                title = "Physical landscape of the expansion of mechanized agriculture in 
                         Mato Grosso, Brazil",
              journal = "Earth Interactions",
                 year = "2005",
               volume = "9",
               number = "16",
                pages = "1--18",
             keywords = "Brazil, Land-cover classification, Land-use change, Landscape 
                         characteristic, Logistic regressions, Physical characteristics, 
                         Soy, Spatially explicit models, Cultivation, Regression analysis, 
                         Land use.",
             abstract = "Mechanized agriculture is rapidly expanding in the state of Mato 
                         Grosso, Brazil. In the past five years, land area planted with 
                         soybeans, the states principal crop, has increased at an average 
                         rate of 19.4% yr1. Drivers of this large-scale land-use conversion 
                         are principally economic and sociopolitical, but physical 
                         properties of the landscape make some areas more attractive than 
                         others for expansion of mechanized agriculture. The goal of this 
                         study is to evaluate several physical characteristics of land in 
                         Mato Grosso and to quantify their respective weights in 
                         determining the likelihood of land-use conversion to crop 
                         production. A 2003 land-cover classification at 250-m resolution 
                         was compared to maps of five physical landscape characteristics 
                         (surface slope, soil type, total November precipitation, distance 
                         from paved roads, and previous land-cover type based on a 2001 
                         classification). A land-cover transition matrix was generated to 
                         inform analysis of the role of previous land-cover type, and 
                         statewide distributions of the other four landscape 
                         characteristics were examined across agricultural and 
                         nonagricultural land. Finally, logistic regressions were performed 
                         to quantify the respective correlations of these various 
                         characteristics with the probability of conversion to mechanized 
                         agriculture. Areas of new cropland in 2003 (converted since the 
                         2001 classification) were nearly 3 times as likely to have been 
                         converted from pasture/cerrado as from all other land-cover types 
                         combined, but in terms of class original extent, bare soil was by 
                         far the most likely class to be converted to cropland, with 56% of 
                         its 2001 land area being converted by 2003. The physical landscape 
                         parameter found most highly correlated with conversion to 
                         mechanized agriculture between 2001 and 2003 was that of the 
                         previous land-cover type, followed by topographic slope and 
                         distance from paved roads. Soil type and total November 
                         precipitation were poorly correlated with mechanized agriculture. 
                         Findings from this study suggest that holistic, spatially explicit 
                         models of likelihood of conversion to mechanized agriculture 
                         should consider land cover, slope, and proximity to main roads in 
                         addition to political and economic parameters to generate 
                         realistic scenarios for sustainable land-use planning.",
           copyholder = "SID/SCD",
                  doi = "10.1175/EI143.1",
                  url = "http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/EI143.1",
                 issn = "1087-3562",
             language = "en",
           targetfile = "physical landscape correlates.pdf",
        urlaccessdate = "08 maio 2024"
}