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Northeastern Brazil Landscape
Identifying areas vulnerable to desertification in northeastern Brazil
Authors: Vieira, RMSP, Tomasella, J., Alvalá, RCS, Sestini, MF, Affonso, AG, Rodriguez, DA, Barbosa, AA, Cunha, APMA, Valles, GF, S. de Crepaniive, E., MSB, Calil , PM, de Carvalho, MA, Valeriano, DM, Campello, FCB and Santana, MO
Solid Earth, 6, 347–360, doi:10.5194/se-6-347-2015, 2015.
Abstract
About 57% of the land in Northeastern Brazil is identified as semi-arid and has undergone intensive land use processes over the last decades, resulting in a significant degradation of its natural assets. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify areas vulnerable to desertification in the region based on 11 factors that influence desertification (pedology, geology, geomorphology, topographic data, land use and land cover changes, drought index, livestock density, rural population density, density of fire hotspots, human development index, conservation units) simulated for two different periods, in 2000 and 2010.
Each indicator was assigned a weight from 1 to 2 (representing the best and worst conditions), indicating low, medium and high desertification susceptibility levels, respectively.
The results show that 94% of northeastern Brazil is moderately to highly susceptible to desertification. The area susceptible to soil desertification increased by about 4.6% (83.4 km2).2) from 2000 to 2010.
The implementation of the methodology provides a technical basis for decision-making on mitigation actions and for the first comprehensive national assessment within the framework of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
See the text: Solid Earth
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