Analysis of demographic and socio-economic factors as drivers of deforestation in the Ribeira do Iguape river basin, Brazilian Atlantic Forest: a GIS integration of census and remote sensing data

Humberto P Alves, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP)

The main objective of the paper is to analyze the role of the different factors (demographic and socio-economic factors, topography, road infra-structure, conservation units) upon land cover change and deforestation processes in the Ribeira Valley watershed, a region that concentrates the largest remnants of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. The methodology for the analysis integrates socio-demographic data (from the Brazilian demographic census – 1991 and 2000) and land cover change data (from satellite images – Landsat TM), at the level of census tracts, in a geographic information system. Our analysis of the factors associated with deforestation in the Ribeira Valley incorporates three important aspects: 1) it presents a wide geographic coverage; 2) it uses very disaggregated spatial unit of analysis (census tracts); and 3) it integrates a large and diverse number of variables for the analysis (census variables, remote sensing/land cover variables and other spatial variables as topography and road infrastructure).