Avaliação espaço-temporal da cultura da cana-de-açúcar no oeste paulista

This work aims to analyze the dynamics of land use change by evaluating the spatio-temporal changes of sugarcane, verified in the period between 2000 and 2015, in the western portion of the São Paulo state. The study area includes parts of the municipalities of Andradina, Muritinga do Sul, Guaraçaí and Pereira Barreto, totaling an area of 1,115 km2. From a multitemporal series of Landsat satellite images of 30 m spatial resolution, the land use information was obtained for the sixteen years, using the Spring software. Land use and land cover maps were analyzed for each date, and the expansion of sugarcane activity in the region was verified, annually, for the period analyzed. As results, it was observed that sugarcane had an expansion in area between the years 2000 and 2014. In the year 2000, about 8,000 hectares of sugarcane were already being cultivated in this area. And although between 2014 and 2015 there was no expansion, the area of sugarcane increased more than fivefold in 15 years analyzed, reaching 42,000 hectares in 2015. It is noteworthy mentioned that this expansion occurred mainly in the conversion of grazing areas, determining new regional configurations of agricultural holdings for the western region of São Paulo.