Open-access Determinants of Historical and Recent Deforestation of the Amazon from the Perspective of Spatial Statistics

ABSTRACT

The Amazon hosts the world’s largest tropical rainforest. Its biodiversity represents approximately 15% of all existing species, many of which are endemic to the region. However, 21% of its native vegetation in Brazil has already been devastated. This study adopted linear (OLS) and spatial autoregressive (SAR) models to analyze the influence of 94 socioeconomic and land use variables (INPE, IBGE, MapBiomas) on the relative deforestation of 773 municipalities of the Brazilian Amazon in order to spatially identify determinants of forest degradation. The first model (historical deforestation up to 2007) presented Moran’s I of 0.781 and R2 of 87.12%, and the second model (deforestation between 2008 and 2022) presented Moran’s I of 0.621 and R2 of 60.18% - both with high spatial dependence. The research found that historical deforestation is associated with multiple factors such as agriculture, population growth, and infrastructure development. In contrast, recent deforestation is predominantly influenced by agricultural expansion, especially soybean cultivation and cattle ranching.

Keywords:
deforestation; Amazon; spatial statistics; agriculture; sustainability

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Fundação Getulio Vargas, Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo Cep: 01313-902, +55 (11) 3799-7898 - São Paulo - SP - Brazil
E-mail: cadernosgpc-redacao@fgv.br
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