LBA-ECO LC-04 Satellite/Census-Based 5-Minute Land Use Data, Amazonia: 1980 and 1995

The result depicts the fraction of each 5-min (9 x 9 km) grid cell that was devoted to agricultural activity during the mid-1990s. The resultant map retains many of the characteristics of the agricultural census data, but with a much finer spatial resolution. During the mid-1990s, cultivated area is estimated to have been 1.7 x 10(7) ha (2.5% of the basin), natural pasture is estimated at 3.3 x 10(7) ha (4.9% of the basin), and planted pasture is estimated to cover 3.3 x 10(7) ha (4.9% of the basin).

Perhaps more important than the quantities, however, is that these data sets provide a new blend of ground- based and satellite-based spatially explicit data. This snapshot can be used as a basis to project either forward or backward in time, as a new check of finer scale land use classifications or as a driver of ecosystem models.