Land Use Changes between 1954 and 2001 in
Brazil’s Federal District

Gustavo Chaves Machado

Geographic focus: Brazil / Brasilia and surrounding region

Date completed: 2002

Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, was a planned city, constructed in a nearly completely rural area several decades ago. Gustavo Chaves Machado, a student at the Centro Academico de Engenharia Florestal, evaluated the dynamics of land cover throughout the lifetime of the city, using GIS to analyze LANDSAT images. Gustavo found that remaining tracts of forested land suffer extensive fragmentation. Visual interpretations of the satellite images demonstrated the role of urban expansion.

Topics / keywords: Urbanization; Forest Fragmentation 

Project (pdf - 0.6MB)