The “New Transamazonian Highway”: BR-319 and Its Current Environmental Degradation

Mendelson Lima, Dthenifer Cordeiro Santana, Ismael Cavalcante Maciel Junior, Patricia Monique Crivelari da Costa, Pedro Paulo Gomes de Oliveira, Raul Pio de Azevedo, Rogerio de Souza Silva, Ubiranei de Freitas Marinho, Valdinete da Silva, Juliana Aparecida Arantes de Souza, Fernando Saragosa Rossi, Rafael Coll Delgado, Larissa Pereira Ribeiro Teodoro, Paulo Eduardo Teodoro and Carlos Antonio da Silva Junior
Additional contact information
Mendelson Lima: Department of Biology, State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), Alta Floresta 78580-000, Brazil
Dthenifer Cordeiro Santana: Department of Agronomy, State University of São Paulo (UNESP), Ilha Solteira 15385-000, Brazil
Ismael Cavalcante Maciel Junior: Department of Biology, State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), Alta Floresta 78580-000, Brazil
Patricia Monique Crivelari da Costa: Department of Geography, State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), Sinop 78550-000, Brazil
Pedro Paulo Gomes de Oliveira: Ciencias, Sistemas Agropecuarios y Medio Ambiente, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, sn, Centro, Ciudad Victoria 87120, Mexico
Raul Pio de Azevedo: Department of Biology, State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), Alta Floresta 78580-000, Brazil
Rogerio de Souza Silva: Department of Biology, State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), Alta Floresta 78580-000, Brazil
Ubiranei de Freitas Marinho: Department of Biology, State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), Alta Floresta 78580-000, Brazil
Valdinete da Silva: Department of Biology, State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), Alta Floresta 78580-000, Brazil
Juliana Aparecida Arantes de Souza: Department of Biology, State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), Alta Floresta 78580-000, Brazil
Fernando Saragosa Rossi: Department of Soil Science, State University of São Paulo (UNESP), Jaboticabal 14884-900, Brazil
Rafael Coll Delgado: Department of Environmental Sciences, Forest Institute, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), Seropédica 23897-000, Brazil
Larissa Pereira Ribeiro Teodoro: Department of Agronomy, Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS), Chapadão do Sul 79560-000, Brazil
Paulo Eduardo Teodoro: Department of Agronomy, Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS), Chapadão do Sul 79560-000, Brazil
Carlos Antonio da Silva Junior: Department of Geography, State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), Sinop 78550-000, Brazil

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-15

Abstract: The Brazilian government intends to complete the paving of the BR-319 highway, which connects Porto Velho in the deforestation arc region with Manaus in the middle of the Amazon Forest. This paving is being planned despite environmental legislation, and there is concern that its effectiveness will cause additional deforestation, threatening large portions of forest, conservation units (CUs), and indigenous lands (ILs) in the surrounding areas. In this study, we evaluated environmental degradation along the BR-319 highway from 2008 to 2020 and verified whether highway maintenance has contributed to deforestation. For this purpose, we created a 20 km buffer adjacent to the BR-319 highway and evaluated variables extracted from remote sensing information between 2008 and 2020. Fire foci, burned areas, and rainfall data were used to calculate a drought index using statistical tests for a time series. Furthermore, these were related to data on deforestation, CUs, and ILs using principal component analysis and Pearson’s correlation. Our results showed that 743 km 2 of forest was deforested during the period evaluated, most of which occurred in the last four years. A total of 16,472 fire foci were identified. Both deforestation and fire foci occurred mainly outside the CUs and ILs. The most affected areas were close to capital cities, and after resuming road maintenance in 2015, deforestation increased outside the capital cities. Current government policy for Amazon occupation promotes deforestation and will compromise Brazil’s climate goals of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and deforestation.

Keywords: Amazon; remote sensing analysis; environment; fire; deforestation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/823/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/823/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:2:p:823-:d:722812

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().