Analysis of changes in the vegetation cover of Pará using the Google Earth Engine

Abstract

In recent years, the process of deforestation in the Amazon Forest has intensified. Among the main causes, we highlight the encouragement of policies of territorial occupation, timber exploitation and increase of areas destined for livestock and agricultural crops. In Brazil, the Forest involves nine states that are part of the Amazon Basin, each of them having portions of the Amazon Forest. Among these states, Pará is the one that most contributed to the increase in deforestation. In this sense, this work aims to analyze the dynamics of the vegetation cover of Pará between the years 1989 and 2019 through the processing of satellite images on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. For the execution of this work, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was calculated using JavaScript language programming in GEE. Images from the Landsat-5 / TM and Landsat-8 / OLI-TIRS satellites were used. The results showed a significant reduction in vegetation cover between 1989 and 2019 mainly in the eastern region of the state. The importance of GHG and NDVI in environmental monitoring and control is highlighted because through the results obtained it was possible to verify changes in the vegetation cover that the Forest has been suffering over the years.