Andrade, Nilo Sergio de Olive 
  
  
Figure 4. Views of the land use patterns in the region: coffee plantation in a new settlement project (a) and pastures (c), 
and corresponding patterns on TM color composites (respectively (b) and (d)). FONTE: Adapted from Alves et al., 
(1998b). 
As can be observed from the analysis of the changes occurred in the study area, it is noticed that a considerable area of 
the mature forest was substituted by pasture and bare soil areas (that will probably be used as pasture areas in the 
future), corresponding to an area of 69.79 Km”, what represents 6.35% of the study area. 
Another significant change observed in the study area was the bare soil that became pasture, corresponding to an area of 
33.47 Km” or 3.05% of the total area. The percentages corresponding to the other alterations can be verified in Table 2 
and are not quite representative. 
From these results one can observe that the main changes occurred in areas actually or previously occupied by forest (as 
is the case of bare soil that became a pasture), this bare soil was previously a forest. In other words, these changes 
represent the deforestation that characterizes this region. 
After this analysis, it was selected (from inside the study area) a region of 541.35 Km? (49% of the total area), to be 
tested with the supervised and unsupervised classifiers and the results are showed in Tables 3,4 and 5. The Figures 4, 5 
and 6 depicts the color mask build for the changes detected with the visual analysis as well as with the supervised and 
unsupervised classification, respectively. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
1995 SITUATION 1997 SITUATION | COLOR | CHANGED AREA | PERCENT OF CHANGE 
Mature and secondary forest Bare soil Red 14.17 Km” 2.62% 
Mature and secondary forest Pasture White 28.36 Km” 5.24% 
Bare soil Pasture Blue 7.74 Km” 1.43% 
Pasture Bare soil Yellow 0.88 Km” 0.16% 
Regrowth Pasture Cyan 1.26 Km” 0.23% 
Burned areas Bare soil Black 1.30 Km” 0.24% 
Burned areas Pasture Brown 0.00Km* 0.0096 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Table 3 —Evolution of changes obtained with the visual analysis. 
  
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B7. Amsterdam 2000. 67