14 
In: Wagner W., Székely, B. (eds.): ISPRS TC VII Symposium - 100 Years ISPRS, Vienna, Austria, July 5-7, 2010, IAPRS, Vol. XXXVIII, Part 7B 
In: Wag 
According to Lara et al. (2005), approximately 20 tons of dry 
sugarcane material is burnt per hectare, contributing to 
approximately 0.48 Tg of carbon per year in global emissions. 
Soares et al. (2009) stated that sugarcane harvested without 
burning eliminates methane (CH 4 ) and nitrous oxide (N 2 0) 
emissions totaling 1.72 tons in carbon dioxide equivalent per 
hectare. This diminishes the total greenhouse gas emissions 
produced during sugarcane harvest by approximately 80%. 
Therefore, a reduction of 136,193 ha harvested with burning 
reduced carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 234.2 thousand 
tons. Postulating that by 2014 all areas that are mechanically 
harvested will have attained the goals stipulated by the agro- 
environmental protocol, the harvests will be performed without 
burning and the newly planted areas will also be harvested 
without burning, a minimum of 3.29 million tons of carbon 
dioxide equivalent per year will not released into the 
atmosphere. By 2017, when no sugarcane areas will burnt for 
harvest this figure will be even greater (3.44 million tons of 
carbon dioxide equivalent per year). 
Figure 3 shows the area available for sugarcane harvest and the 
percentage of each harvest type for the Administrative Regions 
(AR) of the state of Sâo Paulo for the 2006/07 to 2008/09 
seasons. It also illustrates the location of the areas of each 
harvest type for the AR of Araçatuba. The ARs were created by 
the Geographic and Cartographic Institute of Sâo Paulo (IGC) 
for governmental planning. Each AR is composed of several 
municipalities within a specific geographic area with economic 
and social similarities (http://www.igc.sp.gov.br/ 
mapasRas.htm). 
The four ARs located in the southeast region of the state (Sâo 
José dos Campos, Sâo Paulo, Baixada Santista and Registro) 
possesses less extensive cultivated areas and therefore do not 
produce sugarcane for the agroindustrial sector. This is because 
they possess less favorable environmental conditions for the 
cultivation of sugarcane, such as greater rates of rainfall or 
unfavorable for mechanization (Alfonsi et al., 1987). Therefore, 
these ARs are not monitored by the Canasat Project. 
All of the ARs showed an increase in area available for 
sugarcane between the 2006/07 and 2008/09 seasons. This can 
be verified by the change in class in Figures 3a, 3b and 3c, with 
the exception of the Central AR in which there was an increase 
in area without a change in class. The ARs of Sâo José do Rio 
Preto and Araçatuba were the only ARs that changed class each 
season, demonstrating a large expansion in cultivated sugarcane 
area between the analyzed seasons. Sâo José do Rio Preto had 
the greatest area available for harvest in the 2008/09 season, 
representing 12.8% of the total area available in the state. 
All ARs had increases in the percentage of unbumt harvested 
area between the seasons of 2006/07 and 2008/09 except for 
Campinas and Central. These two ARs significantly increased 
their percentages in the 2008/09 season in relation to that of 
2007/08 (Figure 3). The largest change in harvest type occurred 
in the AR of Présidente Prudent where 21.3% of the harvested 
areas in the 2006/07 season were harvested without burning and 
this percentage increased to 59.9% in the 2008/09 season. This 
AR had the greatest percentage of burnt harvest in the 2006/07 
season (78.8%) and in the 2008/09 season it was the AR with 
the lowest percentage of burnt harvest (40.1%). In contrast, 
Bauru was the AR with the greatest percentage of burnt harvest 
(57.5%) 
Araçatuba also showed a large change in the percentage of 
unbumt harvest, increasing from 33.4% in the 2006/07 season 
to 55.4% in the 2008/09 season (and was the AR with the 
second largest percentage of unbumt harvest in the last season). 
This change can be seen in Figure 3, in which this AR is 
highlighted with the localization of burnt and unbumt harvests. 
In the 2006/07 season the high percentage of burnt harvest 
(blue) can be seen, while in the 2008/09 season the majority of 
harvested areas are unbumt (green; there is also an increase in 
unharvested sugarcane). 
4. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS 
The use of remote sensing satellite images allowed evaluate the 
sugarcane harvest type, burnt and unbumt, in the state of Sao 
Paulo over the course of three seasons. Data generated by the 
Canasat Project demonstrated that the harvest type in the state 
has changed over the seasons due to governmental pressure to 
increased sugarcane harvest mechanization. In the 2006/07 
season, 50.9% of the state’s sugarcane harvest was unbumt, and 
this percentage increased to 65.8% in the 2008/09 season. All of 
the Administrative Regions in the state, except for two, showed 
reductions in the percentage of burnt areas. The two exceptions 
showed a small increase in the 2008/09 season compared to that 
of 2007/08. Western Sao Paulo is confirmed as the region with 
greatest expansion and also the region with the greatest 
increases in unbumt harvest. 
For the three analyzed seasons, approximately 97% of the total 
area available for harvest in the state of Sao Paulo was located 
in declivities <12%; therefore, allowing mechanical harvest. 
The spatial analysis of the harvest type allows to establish local 
and regional monitoring and inspection to evaluate the 
effectiveness of the agro-environmental protocol to reduce and 
ultimately cease the pre-harvest burnt practice of sugarcane 
fields. 
5. REFERENCES 
Abdel-Rahman, E. M. and Ahmed, F. B. 2008. The application 
of remote sensing techniques to sugarcane (Saccharum spp. 
hybrid) production: a review of the literature. International 
Journal of Remote Sensing. 29, pp. 3753-3767. 
Aguiar, D. A.; Silva, W. F.; Feitosa, F. F.; Gonqalves, G. G.; 
Rizzi, R.; Rudorff, B. F. T., 2007. Análise espacial da colheita 
da cana-de-aqúcar no Estado de Sao Paulo: a influencia da 
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