CARTOGRAPHY AND REMOTE SENSING IN THE AMAZON 
THE SIVAM PROJECT 
ELIANE ALVES DA SILVA - CARTOGRAFER ENGINEER M.Sc. 
INSTITUTO BRASILEIRO DE GEOGRAFIA E ESTATISTICA -IBGE 
Address: Rua Dona Delfina,47/203 Tijuca/Rio de Janeiro/RJ/Brasil - 20.511-270, 
Tel:55 21-288-8591 , Fax 55 21 569-1103 
webmaster@ibge.gov.br 
Commission VII, Working Group N°6 
Key Words: Airbone Radar, SAR, SIVAM,CBERS, Amazon 
Abstract 
The purpose of this paper is to present some ideas about the cartography and remote sensing applications in 
the Amazon region, in the SIVAM Project conducted by the Brazilian Air Force , the IBGE will make the cartographic 
bases and the future launch of the CBERS - The China Brazil Earth Resources Satellite by the INPE and the CAST. 
The Amazon represents 54% of the 
Brazilian territory, that is approximately two million 
square kilometers, 30% are not mapped in the 
systhematic maps scales: 1:25.000, 1: 50.000 and 
1:100.000 and without a geodesy network observing 
the Index - Map of the Brazilian Institute of 
Geography and Statistics - IBGE. The warm and 
humid conditions, rain forest and cloud covery do not 
support the photogrammetric activities and remote 
sensing activities. 
The Amazon Region Maps produced by the 
RADAM Project, from 1970 Age in militar geopolitics 
named Amazon Operation are very old and were in 
small scales - the radar images maps are in 1:250.000 
scale and thematic maps are in 1:1.000.000 scale. 
Those maps were produced by airbone side-looking 
radar SLAR data. The Brazilian Amazon needs 
changing for territory manegement. 
The Cartography Institute of the Brazilian 
Air Force - ICA that has only fourteen years, is 
producing image-maps (12) in the 1:500.000 scale, 
(5) in the 1:250.000 scale due to the lack of 
cartographic documents in the Amazon region. Its 
product has satisfyed throuh sucess. The Director of 
ICA is Lieutenant Engineer Alison Vieira de 
Vasconcelos. The former Director of ICA is 
Lieutenant Colonel Engineer Nei Erling, nowadays the 
President of the Brazilian Society of Cartography - 
SBC. 
Nowadays the Secretary of the Strategic 
Affairs - SAE and the Brazilian Air Force Ministry 
have another geopolitcs with the creation of the 
Amazon Protection System - SIPAM and the Amazon 
Vigilance System - SIVAM worried about the 
Brazilian society, recommending the sustainable 
development, indian land demark and protection, 
natural reserves, environmental control, public health 
(tropical injuries), cartography and remote sensing. 
The Brazilian Air Force - Forga Aérea 
Brasileira - FAB will map the Amazon region using 
the airbone synthetic aperture radar - SAR from the 
Mac Donald Detwiler - Canada fixed to the airplanes 
EMB - 145 from Aeronautic Brazilian Enterprise - 
EMBRAER, located in Sáo José dos Campos, Sáo 
Paulo State. 
The question of a solution of the lack of 
systematic mapping in the Amazon is importante in 
the direction of making viability to demark and to 
vivify the terrain frontiers and principaly to provide 
informations for the sustainable development in this 
region, moreover in accordance with SILVA (1991) 
"Cartography is ecology, because is the scince that 
permits through its methods, actions, precisions 
technics materialized on the earth surface and by 
means of graphics representations to demark, to 
develop, to monitor and to protect the ecosystems and 
its respective people. It can not have ecologycal 
mentality without cartographic mentality". 
Since the 60 Age the Brazilian Air Force 
fixed goals into the aeronautical field (the Pró-Alcool 
Project) and will give to the Brazilian society the 
SIVAM project. The Brazilian society waite the charts 
that will be produced by the FAB that will complete 
the lack of maps in the Amazon region. 
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII, Part 7, Budapest, 1998 
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