@Article{Freitas:2010:EfRoTo,
               author = "Freitas, Saulo Ribeiro de",
          affiliation = "{Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)}",
                title = "Effects of roads, topography, and land use on forest cover 
                         dynamics in the",
              journal = "Forest Ecology and Management",
                 year = "2010",
               volume = "259",
               number = "3",
                pages = "410--417",
                month = "jan.",
             keywords = "landscape dynamics, deforestation, forest, Brazil.",
             abstract = "Roads and topography can determine patterns of land use and 
                         distribution of forest cover, particularly in tropical regions. We 
                         evaluated how road density, land use, and topography affected 
                         forest fragmentation, deforestation and forest regrowth in a 
                         Brazilian Atlantic Forest region near the city of Sao Paulo. We 
                         mapped roads and land use/land cover for three years (1962, 1981 
                         and 2000) from historical aerial photographs, and summarized the 
                         distribution of roads, land use/land cover and topography within a 
                         grid of 94 non-overlapping 100 ha squares. We used generalized 
                         least squares regression models for data analysis. Our models 
                         showed that forest fragmentation and deforestation depended on 
                         topography, land use and road density, whereas forest regrowth 
                         depended primarily on land use. However, the relationships between 
                         these variables and forest dynamics changed in the two studied 
                         periods; land use and slope were the strongest predictors from 
                         1962 to 1981, and past (1962) road density and land use were the 
                         strongest predictors for the following period (1981-2000). Roads 
                         had the strongest relationship with deforestation and forest 
                         fragmentation when the expansions of agriculture and buildings 
                         were limited to already deforested areas, and when there was a 
                         rapid expansion of development, under influence of Sao Paulo city. 
                         Furthermore, the past(1962)road network was more important than 
                         the recent road network (1981) when explaining forest dynamics 
                         between 1981 and 2000, suggesting a long-term effect of roads. 
                         Roads are permanent scars on the landscape and facilitate 
                         deforestation and forest fragmentation due to increased 
                         accessibility and land valorization, which control land-use and 
                         land-cover dynamics. Topography directly affected deforestation, 
                         agriculture and road expansion, mainly between 1962 and 1981. 
                         Forest are thus in peril where there are more roads, and long-term 
                         conservation strategies should consider ways to mitigate roads as 
                         permanent landscape features and drivers facilitators of 
                         deforestation and forest fragmentation. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All 
                         rights reserved.",
                 issn = "0378-1127",
             language = "en",
           targetfile = "freitas.pdf",
        urlaccessdate = "03 maio 2024"
}