Historical and recent deforestation patterns in the Atlantic Forest from satellite monitoring system - PRODES

The Atlantic Forest (AF) is a critical biodiversity hotspot and the second most deforested Brazilian biome proportional to its original area of natural vegetation. This work presents an exploratory spatial analysis of deforestation patterns from 1984 to 2022, using PRODES-MA data by the Brazilian Satellite Monitoring Program for the AF. During this period, 789600.587 km² of natural vegetation were deforested, being the majority (82%) of the 1309387 polygons with areas smaller than 0.199 km². A ranking of phytophysiognomies most affected by deforestation was provided based on the analysis of the following data: 2000 base map, historical series from 2004 to 2021, the 2022 deforestation map. The output shows that, Seasonal Semideciduous Forest accounted for 44%; 26%; and 28% respectively in 2000, within 2004 – 2021 and in 2022. Kernel density maps revealed deforestation concentration in 2022 in four regions: Bahia (BA), Minas Gerais (MG), Paraná (PR), and Santa Catarina (SC), mostly persistent throughout the historical series. Furthemore, spatial dependence analysis of deforestation by municipalities indicated positive autocorrelation and clusters consistent with density analysis. These regions with higher deforestation intensity are related to economic activities of some municipalities and their neighbors. Even though deforestation data from the PRODES-MA system are widely available, spatiotemporal analysis of its distribution highlighted priority areas useful for managing and planning conservation and recovery policies for AF.