This article is - freely available Remote Sensing Time Series to
Evaluate Direct Land Use Change of Recent Expanded Sugarcane
Crop in Brazil Remote Sensing Division (DSR), National Institute
for Space Research (INPE), Av. dos Astronautas 1758, São José
dos Campos, São Paulo 12227-010, Brazil * Author to whom
correspondence should be addressed. Received: 22 February 2012;
in revised form: 23 March 2012 / Accepted: 26 March 2012 /
Published: 2 April 2012 Abstract: The use of biofuels to
mitigate global carbon emissions is highly dependent on direct
and indirect land use changes (LUC). The direct LUC (dLUC) can
be accurately evaluated using remote sensing images. In this
work we evaluated the dLUC of about 4 million hectares of
sugarcane expanded from 2005 to 2010 in the South-central region
of Brazil. This region has a favorable climate for rain-fed
sugarcane, a great potential for agriculture expansion without
deforestation, and is currently responsible for almost 90% of
Brazilian’s sugarcane production. An av