EVALUATION OF SUGARCANE IN PERMANENT PRESERVATION AREAS IN SÃO PAULO STATE

Abstract

Brazil has advanced in sugarcane cultivation in last decades due to fertile areas and favorable climate, a factor that cause impacts due to land use and land cover changes. In this context, the aim of this work consists in evaluating the expansion of sugarcane cultivation in permanent preservation areas (PPA) for eight municipalities of São Paulo State between 2003 and 2010 years. In this study were used images from the Thematic Mapper sensor (TM) of Landsat 5 Satellite, PPA vectors derived from the project called PPA Environmental Mapping of São Paulo State, and thematic maps of sugarcane provided by CANASAT project. Initial results indicate that municipalities with old expansion (Araraquara, Jaboticabal, Morro Agudo and Pitangueiras) showed little variation in suppression of PPA, varying between 1% and 3%, however, these numbers should be taken into consideration since these municipalities reform sugarcane areas over the years. In addition, the recent expansion showed a suppression of 6% to14% of PPAs, especially to Getulina and Cafelândia municipalities. Moreover, the expansion of sugarcane in PPAs in 2006 to 2009 years occurred due to intensive crop production by sugarcane sector to satisfy the demand for ethanol in the consumer market.