Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Machadinho D Oeste
Village of
Machadinho
Vale do Anari
Study Area
Area
50
0
50
Kilometers
Scale 1:2,500,000
N
Machadinho D Oeste and Vale do Anari
Rondonia
Legal Amazonia
Figure 6.1
Legal Amazonia, Rondonia, and study area, Brazil.
to low fertility and most of them require high inputs for agriculture development
(EMBRAPA/SNLCS, 1982; Brasil, MIRAD-INCRA e SEPLAN - Projeto RADAMBRASIL, 1985).
The study area is 215,000 ha and is divided between the municipalities of Machadinho D'Oeste
(66%) and the north of Vale do Anari (34%). It includes more recent colonization areas, but its
core comprises the first phase (land tracts 1 and 2) of the former Machadinho Settlement settled
in 1984 and 1985. These two land tracts have a total area of 119,400 ha. The land tracts have
multiple uses: 3,000 ha are designated for urban development, 35,165 ha are in extractive reserves,
and 81,235 ha are divided into 1,742 parcels (average size 46 ha) distributed to migrant farmers
by INCRA (Sydenstricker-Neto, 1992).
6.2 METHODS
6.2.1
Imagery
Landsat Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS), Thematic Mapper (TM), and Enhanced Thematic Map-
per (ETM
) digital images were acquired for the study area (path 231/row 67) for one date in 1986,
1994, and 1999. The 1994 and 1999 TM images were 30-m resolution and the 1986 MSS image
was resampled to 30 m to match the TM images. The images were acquired during the dry season
(July or August) of each year to minimize cloud cover. The Landsat images used for LC analysis
were the best available archived scenes.
The 1986 MSS image (August 10) and the 1999 ETM
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image (August 6) were obtained from
the Tropical Rainforest Information Center (TRFIC) at Michigan State University. The 1994 TM
image (July 15) was provided by the Center for Development and Regional Planning (CEDEPLAR)
at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil. Although a TM image for the 1986
date was available, random offset striping made this scene unusable. The MSS image acquired on
the same date was used instead, though thin clouds obscured part of the study area.
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