Temporal and spatial patterns of fire activity in three biomes of Brazil

Abstract

The trade-off between conservation of natural resources and agribusiness expansion is a constant challenge in Brazil. The fires used to promote agricultural expansion increased in the last decades. While studies linking annual fire occurrence and rainfall seasonality are common, the relationship between fires, land use, and land cover remains understudied. Here, we investigated the frequency of the fires and performed a trend analysis for monthly, seasonal, and annual fires in three different biomes: Cerrado, Pantanal, and Atlantic Forest. We used burned area and integrated models in distinct scales (interannual, intraseasonal, and monthly) using Probability Density Functions (PDFs). The best fitting was found for Generalized Extreme Values (GEV) distribution at all three biomes from the several PDFs tested. We found the most fire in the Pantanal (wetlands), followed by Cerrado (Brazilian Savanna) and Atlantic Forest (Semideciduous Forest). Our findings indicated that land use and land cover trends changed over the years. There was a strong correlation between fire and agricultural areas, with increasing trends pointing to land conversion to agricultural areas in all biomes. The high probability of fire indicates that expanding agricultural areas through the conversion of natural biomes impacts several natural ecosystems, transforming land cover and land use. This land conversion is promoting more fires each year.

Keywords: Atlantic Forest; Cerrado; Environmental satellites; Land use and land cover; Pantanal; Probabilistic density functions.