RECENT EVOLUTION (1988-2018) OF COFFEE CROPS AREA IN THE STATE OF RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

ABSTRACT

This work performs an analysis of the spatial pattern of the coffee harvested area in the Rio de Janeiro state between 1988 and 2018. To relate changes in land cover and land use with the coffee land abandonment, geographically weighted regressions (GWR) were adopted with the rates of change in forest and pasture cover, and also with changes in the size of the cattle herd. The coffee-crop area evolution identifies three behaviors: the concentration of planted area in the northwest, with constant growth after the 1990s; a remaining area in the mountainous region; and the abandonment of coffee farms in the south. Although bivariate models can’t explain the changes in land cover and land use, geographically weighted regressions point to a trend of replacing coffee cover with pasturelands in the south region of the state, while eventual changes for forest cover are more likely in other regions.

Keywords::

• Spatial pattern
• agricultural-land abandonment
• time series
• geographically weighted regression (GWR)

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for financial support from CNPq fellowship (Raúl Sánchez Vicens and Carla Bernadete Madureira Cruz) and scholarship from Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Felipe Gonçalvez Amaral)

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq (304224/2018-9).