|
|
|
Basin Wide Studies - Land Cover & Land Use Change
Click herefor an enlarged image. |
Optical and microwave remote sensing data are used synergistically to map the vegetation types of the Amazon basin. The primary application of this map is to improve the land surface parameterization of ecosystem models over the basin. The Amazon basin occupies a vast area of South America, nearly 6,000,000 km2, more than half of it in Brazil. The region is a physiographic and biological entity dominated by dense forest with total biomass typically over 400 Mg ha-1. The forest varies greatly in physiognomy, biomass, and floristic composition. Extensive savannas are found mostly to the north and south of the basin. Deforestation is concentrated along the southern and eastern part of the basin, along highways crossing the region and along the base of the Andes. The land cover classification adopted here is largely based on the vegetation classification of the RADAMBRASIL project, as presented in Veloso et al. (1991), Prance, (1979), Pires and Prance, (1985), and IBGE (1997), excluding those vegetation types not found in Amazonia. The main difference between this classification and those used in global land cover schemes such as in IGBP (International Geosphere Biosphere Program) and USGS (US Geological Survey) are the hierarchy of biomass levels within each major type and the addition of floodplain vegetation types that are ignored in Simple Biosphere (SiB) general circulation model (Sellers et al. 1996), but are included in more recent regional scale process models.
Saatchi et al. 2005
|
