The present work aims to quantify land use and land cover changes in Luis Eduardo Magalhães municipality using remote sensing data. The region presented a large expansion of the agriculture and agribusiness since the 1980s due to the environmental conditions favorable with flat lands and a well-defined rainy season. Main crops are soybean, cotton, maize and coffee, but the Cerrado soil also produces fruits, beans and rice, besides pastures. The post-classification change detection method was used to determine differences between images during the last two decades. This methodology requires the comparison of independently classified images, thereby minimizing problems of normalization for atmospheric, sensor differences and landscape conditions (phenology, precipitation cycles and soil moisture). ALOS and Landsat images were used to produce land cover classification maps between 1987 and 2008. The method used to classify each image was visual interpretation. During the last 20 years, farmers converted approximately 40% of savanna into farmlands. Land cover changes in the Luis Eduardo Magalhães reflect the impacts of management decisions made in agricultural and economic policy.
Multitemporal Analysis; Change Detection; Post-classification; Agribusiness; Land Use
