SPATIAL PATTERNS OF BURNED AREA IN THE PANTANAL BIOME AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH LANDSCAPE STRUCTURE

The Pantanal is the largest freshwater floodplain in the world, but its ecological equilibrium has been strongly impacted by human activities, which has caused an intensification in fires, an increase in landscape fragmentation and modification in the hydrological cycle. The goal of this study was to answer two main questions: 1. How are characterized the spatial patterns of fires, concerning total burned area (size) and duration of burn scars? 2. What is the relationship between fire and landscape fragmentation in the Pantanal biome? The following features were extracted from remote sensing products and analyzed: Size and Duration of fires and landscape metrics, Forest Proportion, Edge Density and Number of Patches. The spatial change observed in the fire patterns (southwest to northeast) can be explained by climate seasonality and by high level of fragmentation in the central portion of the biome.