2014-10-062013-02-15SILVA, Elaine Barbosa da. A dinâmica socioespacial e as mudanças na cobertura e uso da terra no bioma cerrado. 2013. 148 f. Tese (Doutorado em Geografia) - Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, 2013.http://repositorio.bc.ufg.br/tede/handle/tede/3277The Cerrado biome has faced intense changes in land cover / land use since the 70´s, related to both governmental policies and private initiatives focused on the implementation of modern agricultural practices. In result, more than 50% of its original vegetation has been converted and intensively fragmented, and large-scale migration towards urban centers, in addition to others socialterritorial impacts, has occurred. Within this context, this study aims at understanding these transformations, prioritizing the spatial and temporal dimensions regarding the conversion to cultivated pastures and croplands. Considering that pastures represent the largest land use in the Cerrado, and that such occupation is the main driver behind beef production, this work specifically focused on pasture expansion, based on the spatially-explicit analysis of historical census data. Likewise, we also investigated the expansion of the Cerrado agricultural frontiers, for which four distinct areas, representing both consolidated, as well as frontiers in development were selected and mapped regarding land cover and land use changes from 1975 to 2010: a) the central-south portion of the Goiás State, representative of consolidated areas; b) the central portion of Mato Grosso, near the Cerrado – Amazon border; c) the Bahia western portion, and d) the MAPITO region, encompassing the convergence of the Maranhão, Piauí, and Tocantins states. Clearly, the proximity to major consumption centers, induced by the demand for agricultural commodities governmental incentives, drove land occupation, at different rates. Thus, the biome central-south region, occupied more rapidly with both cultivated pastures and crops, can be characterized as a traditional frontier, which anticipated the establishment of the modern agriculture. On the other hand, expansion of the agricultural frontier in more remote areas occurred more recently, according to the consolidation of the private driven and state supported commodity agriculture. It is worth of mentioning that in both consolidated and expanding frontiers, cultivated pastures dispute the more suitable lands with the crop agriculture. Although pastures are usually constrained to low fertility soils and higher slope terrains, it remains close to the consumption centers, confirming the Cerrado ability in properly accommodating both economic activities.application/pdfAcesso AbertoCerradoMudança na cobertura e uso da terraFronteira agrícolaModernização da agriculturaCerradoLand cover and land use changeAgriculture frontierAgriculture modernizationGEOGRAFIA REGIONAL::REGIONALIZACAOTese