Diagnóstico da detecção e avaliação da sucessão ecológica no Cerrado com dados do MapBiomas

Abstract

The Cerrado biome, the most biodiverse savanna in the world, is under intense pressure from land use and land cover conversion, requiring monitoring of its ecological succession dynamics. This study aimed to analyze the MapBiomas time series to qualify ecological succession processes based on the ambiguous Land Use Mosaic class (Class 21), which represents areas in initial regeneration. The methodology focused on analyzing the temporal trajectory of pixels and the increase in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as an indicator of vegetation structure.The analysis demonstrated the effectiveness of the method in overcoming the spectral uncertainty of the Mosaic Use class, which presented 66% inconsistency in relation to the reference collection, by accurately detecting 54 transition points to natural vegetation. The consistent permanence of the natural vegetation class after the conversion of Land Use Mosaic and the increase in NDVI over the years corroborated the two hypotheses, confirming that the transitions captured represent a structural establishment of vegetation and not mere spectral fluctuations.The results reveal that 88.89% of the succession processes detected are of anthropogenic origin, highlighting the natural resilience potential of the Cerrado in areas previously used for agriculture and livestock. The study, however, warns of the risk of overestimating the natural areas of the biome, since 10.37% of the points were mistakenly classified as natural, reinforcing the need for temporal consistency criteria. This diagnosis fills scientific gaps by providing a robust methodology that addresses the spatial heterogeneity of the biome, offering a solid basis for improving future versions of MapBiomas and for more effective recovery and conservation policies.