Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 24 (2021) 100646

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Remote Sensing Applications: Society and

Environment
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rsase

Spatio-temporal dynamics of land use changes of an intense

anthropized basin in the Brazilian semi-arid region
Maria da Conceição de Sousa a, b, ∗, Gustavo Vieira Veloso b, Lucas Carvalho Gomes b,
Elpidio Inácio Fernandes-Filho b, Teógenes Senna de Oliveira b
a Department of Ecology, Universidade Federal Do Ceará, Fortaleza, CE, 60440-900, Brazil
b Department of Soil Science, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, 36570-900, Brazil

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The temporal dynamics of land use and land cover (LULC) changes affect natural resources and
Jaguaribe river biodiversity on a local and global scale. The negative impacts of LULC changes can be enhanced
MapBiomas in arid and semi-arid areas, where vegetations are more sensitive to changes due to limited water
Land use transitions availability. The present study aimed to explore the detailed spatio-temporal LULC changes in
Semi-arid
the Jaguaribe River basin, Ceará state, Brazil. Specifically, we aimed to identify the dynamics of
LULC changes from 1985 to 2018, including the main LULC conversations and the sub-basins
that presented the most intense dynamics. For this, we used annual LULC maps generated by the
national Mapbiomas project. The LULC conversions were determined through cross-tabulation
analysis and pixel comparison analysis. Our results indicate that in the last three decades there
was a significant conversion of the natural vegetation Caatinga (Arboreal and Herbaceous) to
agricultural and livestock areas, showing that the anthropic activities are the main factors behind
the historical landscape changes in the Jaguaribe River basin. The Middle Jaguaribe and the
Lower Jaguaribe sub-basins were the most affected by LULC changes during the study period.
While the LULC changes in Middle Jaguaribe sub-basin reveal that this area has been impacted
by anthropic interference with similar areas of pasture and the caatinga class since 1985, the
Lower Jaguaribe sub-basin was continuously impacted mainly by the expansion of the annual
and perennial culture and reduction of natural vegetation areas. The Lower Jaguaribe sub-basin
had a higher percentage of altered areas, LULC classes per pixel and LULC changes during the
study period. The spatio-temporal analysis presented can orient planning actions to conserve nat-
ural resources and preserve the biodiversity in this semi-arid region of Brazil.

1. Introduction
Land use and land cover (LULC) changes have modified landscapes worldwide, affecting natural resources and biodiversity in
crossing scales and significantly influencing the functionality of ecosystems (Mori et al., 2018). Although the negative effects of LULC
changes can be enhanced in arid and semi-arid areas that present limiting climatic conditions (Terrado et al., 2013), few studies have
explored in detail the LULC changes in these regions (Kouba et al., 2018; Huang et al., 2018). The Brazilian semiarid region, where
the Caatinga biome predominates, is the largest continuous area of seasonally dry tropical forests (Miles et al., 2006) and has been
facing an intense process of conversion of natural vegetation to different types of LULC (Matsushita et al., 2006). The Caatinga biome

Corresponding author. Department of Ecology, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, CE, 60440, Brazil.
∗

E-mail addresses: seyssa.sousa@hotmail.com (M. da Conceição de Sousa), gustavo.v.veloso@gmail.com (G.V. Veloso), lucascarvalhogomes15@hotmail.com
(L.C. Gomes), elpidio@ufv.br (E.I. Fernandes-Filho), teo@ufv.br (T. Senna de Oliveira).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2021.100646
Received 4 March 2021; Received in revised form 2 October 2021; Accepted 4 October 2021
Available online 8 October 2021
2352-9385/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
M. da Conceição de Sousa et al. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 24 (2021) 100646

represents 70% of the Brazilian northeast region and 11% of the national territory (Bucher 1982) and presents high plant biodiversity
adapted to the semiarid climate seasonality, with about 1700 species of trees and shrubs, of which more than 300 species are endemic
(Moro et al., 2014; Pagano et al., 2013). Even though almost all the Caatinga vegetation has been converted or modified (Castelletti et
al., 2003), less than 2% of the Caatinga is fully protected in conservation units (Tabarelli and Vicente 2003). Thus, understanding the
historical LULC changes is fundamental to identify the most susceptible areas to LULC changes, and can be an important tool to im-
prove environmental monitoring and public policies (Monteiro and Adami, 2016).
Anthropic actions are the main factors responsible for LULC changes in the Caatinga biome (Vanzela et al., 2010; Araújo et al.,
2007; Matsushita et al., 2006). Subsistence activities such as agriculture, livestock and logging are the main specific causes of land-
scape changes, intensifying the degradation processes of natural resources (Sampaio et al., 2005; Silva et al., 2012; Vanzela et al.,
2010). Understand the spatio-temporal LULC changes in the Caatinga is a challenge since the natural vegetation can recover faster
and there is a lack of information studies with this perspective (Castelletti et al., 2003). Modeling LULC changes have been widely ap-
plied in research on land use degradation and conversions (Butt et al., 2015; Kouba et al., 2018; Terrado et al., 2013; Huang et al.,
2018; El Baroudy, 2011; El Nahry et al., 2008), allowing to understand the behavior of biophysical parameters concerning climate
change and anthropogenic actions (Bezerra et al., 2014). Therefore, the identification of LULC changes in the Caatinga biome can
provide important information about the main drivers and guide future actions for the preservation of this biome.
Information of LULC at large scales mainly resulted from the processing and classification of satellite images, but it requires a deep
and specific understanding of modeling processes. To overcome these challenges, the MapBiomas project developed annual maps of
LULC from 1985 to 2019 for the entire Brazilian territory at 30 × 30 m resolution. This database has a great potential to assist the
monitoring of degradation processes in the Brazilian semiarid region (Ganem, 2017; Santos et al., 2018). The main purpose of the
project is to contribute to the understanding of LULC dynamics to support public policies, monitoring assessments, and support other
fields of research that require LULC maps (Mapbiomas, 2019). The MapBiomas project uses the Landsat time series, cloud processing
and automated classifiers, developed and operated on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform to produce the annual LULC maps. Al-
though the MapBiomas project was launched online in 2015, few studies attempted to explore in deep the spatio-temporal dynamics
of LULC changes in the Brazilian Caatinga biome.
A better understanding of LULC dynamics is relevant for environmental planning aiming for the preservation of natural resources
within a watershed. Such information can be the basis for research related to changes in soil properties, vegetation, hydrology, and
biodiversity. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to explore in detail the spatio-temporal dynamics of LULC changes in the
Jaguaribe River basin. Specifically, we aimed to (i) identify the dynamics of LULC changes from 1985 to 2018; (ii) detect the main
LULC conversions during this period and (iii) identify the sub-basins that presented the most intense LULC changes.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Study area

The study area was the Jaguaribe River basin that covers 72 437 km2, almost 50% of the Ceará state, Brazil (Fig. 1). The altitude
in the region varies from 1 to 1132 m above sea level and the relief is composed of plateaus and hollow depressions. The highest alti-
tudes of the basin correspond to the Planalto Sertanejo, a plateau in the south region of the basin, where the Chapada do Araripe is in-
serted. The basin is composed of five water resources planning and management units, which correspond to the Upper, Middle and
Lower Jaguaribe sub-basins, and the Salgado and the Banabuiú sub-basins. There are eight irrigated perimeters in this basin, with
four of them located in the Lower Jaguaribe sub-basin.
The region's climate according to the Köppen classification varies between semi-arid tropical hot, mild semi-arid tropical hot and
sub-humid tropical hot (in regions with higher altitudes), with mean monthly temperature always above 18 °C. The mean annual pre-
cipitation is 800 mm (IPECE, 2007), with a rainy season from January and May, followed by a long period of drought. The region is
characterized by spatial and temporal climatic heterogeneity, encompassing a large portion of the driest regions of the Ceará state,
such as the Inhamus region with mean annual rainfall ranging from 400 to 600 mm, and the Cariri region with precipitation higher
than 1000 mm per year (Barbosa et al., 2006).
The Jaguaribe river basin has an active economy based mainly on agricultural production with irrigated agriculture, livestock and
various other subsistence activities. In addition, this basin has a strategic role in the state's water infrastructure, comprising the
largest water reservoirs in the state that integrate the supply system of the metropolitan region of Fortaleza and the complex indus-
trial park do Pecém through the Trabalho and Integração water channels (Medeiros et al., 2011; Araújo et al., 2007).

2.2. Data acquisition and processing

The annual LULC maps between 1985 and 2018 used in this study were developed by the MapBiomas project (http://
mapbiomas.org/). The annual maps of LULC are produced from the classification of Landsat satellite images and are freely available
at 30 × 30 m resolution. The LULC classification for the Caatinga Biome was performed using the mosaic of Landsat images obtained
during the rainy season (January to June) of each year, due to the vegetation response to the climatic seasonality in this period. The
image classification process for the Caatinga biome presented an accuracy of 74.3% (http://mapbiomas.org/pages/accuracy-
analysis). Aiming to support the information provided by the LULC maps, we also used information available in the literature.
The LULC maps were downloaded directly from the MapBiomas website (collection 4.0) and were projected and the LULC types
reclassified. The Forest formation was reclassified in Arboreal Caatinga and the Savanna formation class into Caatinga (shrub herba-
ceous), according to the nomenclature defined by Sousa (2009). The classes with low representativeness of area and small variation

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M. da Conceição de Sousa et al. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 24 (2021) 100646

Fig. 1. Jaguaribe River basin and sub-basins, with the location of the eight irrigated perimeters in the Ceará state, Brazil.

were grouped, while the other classes remained with the denominations of MapBiomas (Fig. 2). For the data visualization and pro-
cessing, we used ESRI ArcGIS 10.5 software and R software (R Core Team, 2020).

2.3. Land use land cover dynamics

Aiming to determine the conversion between LULC types, we applied a pixel-by-pixel cross-tabulation analysis on ArcGis consid-
ering the time intervals between the years 1985, 1995, 2005, 2015 and 2018. Sankey diagrams were generated in R environment to
better represent the LULC conversions. The LULC changes were evaluated considering the total area of the basin, the initial area occu-
pied and the losses and gains in time for each class.
The assessment of the LULC dynamics was carried out based on the concordance analysis (Sposito, 2021), which consisted of over-
lapping the annual LULC maps and the pixel by pixel assessment of the class presented. This analysis was performed in the R software
using the packages raster (Hijmans, 2020), caret (Kuhn, 2020), ggplot (Wickham, 2016) and ggalluvial (Brunson, 2017). The pixel-by-
pixel analyses consisted of the (i) detection of presence or absence of changes, according to the agreement or disagreement between
the classes for the same pixel; (ii) determination of the modal class (most frequent class) in each pixel and the frequency in which they
occurred (modal frequency); (iii) determination of the number of LULC classes that occurred in each pixel (variety); and (iv) quantifi-
cation of times that LULC changed at each pixel during the studied period.

3. Results

3.1. Historical land use land cover changes

The predominant LULC classes in 1985 were the caatinga (69.5%), pasture (19.4%), arboreal caatinga (6.3%), mosaic agriculture-
pasture (2.1%) and water bodies (1.3%, Fig. 2). After 34 years, we found a decrease in caatinga (−15.95%), arboreal caatinga
(−8.91%), mangrove (−36.21%), campestre formation (−80.51%), non-vegetated area (−80.89%) and water bodies (−48.09%;
Appendix 1). On the other hand, there was a significant increase in areas of pasture (+47.03%), annual and perennial crops
(+1507%), mosaic agriculture-pasture (+3.87%), urban area (+391.37%) and aquaculture (+277.92%). The temporal analysis in-
dicates that LULC changes were more intense in certain periods and specific LULC classes (Fig. 3). For instance, the annual and peren-
nial culture, pasture and urban area showed the highest increasing rates between 1985 and 2018, while there was a decline in the ar-
eas occupied by the caatinga. The water bodies and the mosaic agriculture-pasture presented irregular dynamics during the study pe-
riod.

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M. da Conceição de Sousa et al. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 24 (2021) 100646

Fig. 2. Spatio temporal changes of Land use and Land cover (LULC) classes between 1985 and 2015 from the Jaguaribe River basin, Ceará.

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M. da Conceição de Sousa et al. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 24 (2021) 100646

Fig. 3. Annual variation of the land use land cover classes and precipitation in the Jaguaribe sub-basins between 1985 and 2018. The sub-basins are identified as: Upper
Jaguaribe (a), Middle Jaguaribe (b), Lower Jaguaribe (c), Salgado (d), and Banabuiú (e).

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M. da Conceição de Sousa et al. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 24 (2021) 100646

3.2. Land use and cover changes in sub-basins

Analysing the sub-basin separately, we found that caatinga was the main LULC class in Upper and Lower Jaguaribe, Salgado and
Banabuiú sub-basins, while the Middle Jaguaribe sub-basin showed similar areas of pasture and caatinga (Fig. 3). The growth of ur-
ban areas follows the same trend in the whole basin. The mosaic agriculture-pasture class is among the three most representative ar-
eas of the Middle, Lower and Banabuiú sub-basins. The increase of the annual and perennial culture class was registered in all sub-
basins, with higher values for the Middle, Lower and Banabuiú sub-basins compared with the areas in 1985. Among the sub-basins,
annual and perennial culture class showed the highest increase compared with the initial value, with emphasis on the Banabuiú sub-
basin (+600 000%), Middle Jaguaribe (+400 000%) followed by Lower Jaguaribe (+40 000%), Upper Jaguaribe (+3700%) and
Salgado (+433%).

3.3. Land use and land cover transitions

The main LULC changes between 1985 and 2015 were associated with the transition of Caatinga to anthropized areas (Fig. 4,
Appendix 2). Between 1985 and 1995 the arboreal caatinga decreased by 15% and was replaced mainly (62%) by caatinga. However,
we found that during the first 10 years of analysis, the caatinga reduced 10% and was converted mainly (75%) to pasture areas, which
increased 31% during the study period. The annual perennial culture also had a steady increase of 417% mainly over pasture and mo-
saic agriculture-pasture. Between 1995 and 2005, there was a decrease of 8.89% of arboreal caatinga, which was converted mainly to
caatinga (53.6%) and pasture (21.2%). However, caatinga decreased by 5.3% in total and was replaced mainly by pasture (75.9%)
during this period. From 2005 to 2015, there was a decrease in the areas of mosaic agriculture-pasture (46.1%) and caatinga (0.3%),
and growth in the areas of arboreal caatinga (1,9%), pasture (3.41%) and annual and perennial culture (119.2%). The mosaic agricul-
ture-pasture was replaced by caatinga (35.1%), pasture (55.1%) and annual and perennial culture (6.4%). Between 2015 and 2018
there was an increase of arboreal caatinga (15.8%), annual and perennial culture (12.9%), while the areas of caatinga (−0.9%) and
pasture (−3.15%) decreased. Shrub herbaceous caatinga class was mainly converted to arboreal caatinga (18.4%), annual and peren-
nial culture (0.8%) and mosaic agriculture-pasture (22.6%).

3.4. Main LULC conversion in the sub-basins

The LULC changes in the Jaguaribe presented different spatio-temporal dynamics in the sub-basins. The Upper Jaguaribe sub-
basin showed a similar dynamic compared to the whole basin, with a decrease over the years in the caatinga and arboreal caatinga ar-
eas and a significant increase in the pasture area. We found that the arboreal caatinga was converted mainly into pasture and annual
and perennial culture, with higher intensity between 1985 and 2005. Caatinga was continually converted mainly into pasture areas
throughout the studied period, but also to annual and perennial culture and mosaic agriculture-pasture.
In the Middle Jaguaribe, the pasture and caatinga classes maintained similar areas since 1985 and the larger area of mosaic agri-
culture-pasture class compared to the others classes. The caatinga areas were converted mainly into pasture areas and mosaic agricul-
ture-pasture. Moreover, the areas of annual and perennial culture presented an expressive significant growth of about 419 000%, in-
creasing from approximately 0.09 km2–363.05 km2 between 1985 and 2018. The Lower Jaguaribe sub-basin was the only one among
the five sub-basins studied that presented all the 13 LULC classes. In this sub-basin the caatinga was converted into pasture area, mo-
saic agriculture-pasture, annual and perennial crop, and arboreal caatinga. While the mosaic areas of agriculture and pasture occu-
pied a significant area until 2005, they were converted to pasture areas in the following years. In this sub-basin, the annual and peren-
nial culture class increased since 1985, replacing mainly pasture areas and caatinga.
Contrasting to the other sub-basins, the Salgado sub-basin showed an increase in areas of arboreal caatinga, and a small growth in
pasture and annual and perennial culture areas. The caatinga areas were converted mainly to pasture and arboreal caatinga. Although
the caatinga class kept approximately 81% of the area occupied in 1985, the remaining was replaced by areas of herbaceous caatinga

Fig. 4. Main land use land cover transitions between the years 1985,1995, 2005, 2015 and 2018 in the Jaguaribe river basin, Ceará, Brazil. Each line in the figure repre-
sents the temporal dynamics of the area of a pixel (30 × 30m) from the study area.

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M. da Conceição de Sousa et al. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 24 (2021) 100646

and pasture. Although the annual and perennial crop areas showed a lower growth percentage than in the other sub-basins, the spe-
cific area increased from 164.5 km2–877.4 km2 between 1985 and 2018. Finally, the Banabuiú lost the largest area of arboreal
caatinga and caatinga and presented the biggest increase of pasture areas. The areas initially occupied by the caatinga were converted
over time into pasture and mosaic agriculture-pasture.

3.5. Spatio-temporal dynamics of LULC pixel by pixel

The pixel by pixels analysis of the LULC dynamics allowed us to identify spatio-temporal patterns in the study areas between 1985
and 2018 (Fig. 5). The results showed that 50.3% (36 436 km2) presented at least one LULC transition, while 49.7% (36 001 km2) re-
mained the same class during the study period. The Lower Jaguaribe had the highest percentage of altered areas (61.08%), followed
by Banabuiú (52.2%) and Salgado (50.2%) sub-basins. In the Upper and Middle Jaguaribe sub-basins, the percentage of area with
changes was 45.23% and 46.43%, respectively.
Analysing the classes with the highest frequency in each pixel during the last 34 years, we found that 64.8% of the area presented
the caatinga vegetation class as the modal class, followed by pasture with 25.87% and arboreal caatinga with 4.84%. Comparing the
modal classes related to altered or unchanged areas (Appendix 3), from 46 905 km2 with the modal class caatinga, 18 920.4 km2
have been subjected to changes during the study period. The areas with the modal class pasture occupied 18 736 km2, from which
13 395.5 km2 have already undergone to other LULC classes. While 2546 km2 from the total of 3506 km2 of area covered by the
modal class of arboreal caatinga remained unchanged, the modal class of annual and perennial culture occupied 1082 km2 and only
11.0 km2 of that total remained unchanged. Within the sub-basins, the arboreal caatinga class was the most frequent LULC class in
12.81% of the Salgado sub-basin and 4.48% in the Upper Jaguaribe sub-basin. The caatinga was the most frequent modal class in 76%
of the pixels in the Upper Jaguaribe basin and 68.2% in the Banabuiú sub-basin. The pasture class was the most frequent modal class
in the Middle Jaguaribe sub-basin with 46.9%, followed by the Banabuiú sub-basin with 26.35%. The modal class of annual and
perennial culture showed higher frequency in the sub-basins of Lower Jaguaribe (7.23%), and Salgado (2.52%).
The variety analysis allowed us to verify the number of different LULC classes that occurred in each pixel for 34 years, and we
found a variation from one to ten LULC types in the study area. Specifically, 49.7% of the basin had only one LULC class, 26.3%
showed two, 19.5% three and 4.5% more than three LULC classes. The number of LULC changes in each pixel could vary from 0 to 34
times (studied period), but only a maximum of 25 LULC changes was recorded for a pixel. Areas with only one LULC change were
recorded in 11.2% of Upper Jaguaribe, 11.2% of Middle Jaguaribe, 6.67% of Lower Jaguaribe, 10.06% of Salgado and 8.24% of Ba-
nabuiú, while areas with LULC changes ranging from 5 to 25 times were recorded in 7.5% of Upper Jaguaribe, 7.64% of Middle
Jaguaribe, 22.83% of Lower Jaguaribe, 8.9% of Salgado and 7.8% of Banabuiú.

4. Discussion
The Jaguaribe River basin has been subject to anthropic interventions since the start of the colonization of Ceará state, with the
Jaguaribe River being one of the main facilitators for the settlement of the colonizers (Pantalena and Maia, 2014). The occupation of
the Jaguaribe River basin was characterized by the cattle-cotton production that brought wealth to the landowners. However, it re-
sulted in the devastation of the ecosystem, where areas were cleared for the cattle settlement, followed by the deforestation of native
vegetation to introduce cotton that expanded in the hinterlands of the Jaguaribe valley (Guerra et al., 2012). This explains why few
current conserved areas can represent the original conditions of natural vegetation cover. However, our results indicated that there
are areas of natural vegetation (caatinga and arboreal caatinga) that have remained for at least 34 years (Fig. 5a).
The changes of annual and perennial culture, pastures, mosaic agriculture-pastures and urban areas between 1985 and 2018 in
the Jaguaribe River were probably driven by governmental measures for the regional economic development (Fig. 2). Public policies
and government institutions encouraged the modernization of agriculture in the Brazilian Northeast region aiming to increase pro-
duction and promote the economy in the stagnant regions (Pontes and Aragão, 2013). For instance, the National Department for
Works Against Droughts – DNOCS in cooperation with the Superintendence for the Development of the Northeast – SUDENE imple-
mented irrigation policies, which helped to install eight irrigated perimeters in the Jaguaribe River basin in a total area of 678 km2
(Fig. 1), with 42% of irrigated area and 52% for rainfed agriculture. The rapid growth of the annual and perennial culture class be-
tween the years 1985–2000 (Fig. 3) can be explained by federal and state public policies for the development of fruit production in
the state, which in addition to tax incentives, developed several programs with strategies for expanding the irrigated area and increas-
ing production, as well as favouring the sector's demand for labour, generating jobs and increasing exports (Programa de Apoio e
Desenvolvimento da Fruticultura Irrigada no Nordeste, 1997; Programa de Desenvolvimento da Fruticultura, 2003). To support the
irrigated areas, there were investments in infrastructure, such as the construction of large reservoirs and water supply channels, in-
creasing the water availability for irrigated agriculture (Silva, 2006).
The significant increase of 47.23% in the pasture class can be explained by the low cost to implement livestock activities in the re-
gion (Dias-Filho, 2016). The growth of pasture areas without adequate management has been associated with the high incidence of
degraded pastures in the country and the stigmatization of livestock as an unproductive activity and essentially harmful to the envi-
ronment (Dias-Filho, 2014). The National Agricultural Census indicated that in the Ceará state there was a decrease in pasture areas
(10%), natural pastures (18%), and an increase in degraded pastures by 265% between 2006 and 2017. The decrease in pasture areas
recorded by the 2017 agricultural census, was concomitant with the decrease in cattle production, and an increase in the creation of
smaller animals such as sheep, goats and pigs.
Although the mosaic agriculture-pasture increased by 391.37% in the studied period, this LULC class occupied only 1617 km2 in
2018, equivalent to 2.2% of the basin's territory. This class contained areas that were initially classified as pasture and later aban-

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M. da Conceição de Sousa et al. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 24 (2021) 100646

Fig. 5. Maps of the spatial distribution of areas with the presence or absence of land use land cover (LULC) changes (a), modal classes (b), percentage of modal class
frequency (c), number of LULC changes (d) and variety of LULC changes (e) between 1985 and 2018 in the Jaguaribe river basin, Ceará, Brazil.

doned for recovery, or even rainfed agriculture areas also abandoned for recovery. The Ceará state is the 8th most populous in Brazil
(IBGE. Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, 2017), and the growth of urban areas in our study follows the world's patterns
and is associated with the economic development of the country and region (Vergolino and Dantas, 2005). Jaguaribe River occupies
50% of the total state area, and the development of the urban area in the period studied was driven mainly by economic and other di-
verse factors, such as the migration for urban areas to have access to basic education, sanitation and health services.
Although the study region had a significant percentage of natural coverage in 2018, with 58.4% of the area covered by caatinga
and 5.7% by arboreal caatinga, our results show that these areas are composed of fragmented patches and consequently ecologically

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unstable. The state of Ceará is completely covered by the Caatinga biome according to the Brazilian biome map (IBGE 2007). While
this simplified classification facilitates the planning of public policies for the management and conservation of biodiversity at the na-
tional level, it shadows the fact that each phytogeographic domain covers a heterogeneous geographical space, where different types
of vegetation occur, increasing problems in conservation actions and management at the local scale (Moro et al. 2014). The areas of
caatinga vegetation appear as the dominant class in the basin (Fig. 2), but our analysis of pixel by pixel also indicates that these areas
are mostly under constant disturbance in all sub-basins (Fig. 5). The conversions of caatinga to pasture and vice-versa pose a serious
threat to the basin's natural resources since uncontrolled changes in LULC along with climate changes can cause an irreversible degra-
dation scenario in the Caatinga region (Castanho et al., 2020; Morais et al., 2017).
The Middle Jaguaribe and Low Jaguaribe sub-basins presented the highest percentage of anthropic interference in the studied pe-
riod with similar areas of caatinga and pasture since 1985. The main impacts in the Middle Jaguaribe occurred before 1985 and are
mainly related to agricultural activities, which remain as a source of economic returns and have moved from extensive to semi-
intensive systems (Guerra et al., 2012). Moreover, the Lower Jaguaribe sub-basin has been continuously impacted by the annual and
perennial cultivation due to the optimal water availability. This fact is reinforced by the pixel analysis, which indicated higher per-
centage of altered areas, number of LULC per pixel and number of LULC changes in the Lower Jaguaribe sub-basin.

5. Conclusion
The present study indicates that LULC changes resulted in a significant decrease and fragmentation of natural vegetation caatinga
(−15.95%) and arboreal caatinga (−8.91%), and the expansion of agricultural (+1507%) and pasture (+47.03%) in the Jaguaribe
river basin from 1985 to 2018. The Middle Jaguaribe and Lower Jaguaribe sub-basins presented the higher spatio-temporal variation
of LULC changes during this period.
Our results from the pixel by pixel analysis allow to identify areas that are more susceptible or not to LULC changes, and it is an
important tool to improve the environmental management of agricultural areas. In addition, we show the spatial location of areas
with the presence and absence of LULC changes in the last three decades. This information can be useful for field surveys aiming to
explore the vegetation or wild animal dynamics in stable natural areas.
Although the detected LULC changes may contain inaccuracies due to the classification process, the spatio-temporal analysis pre-
sented can orient planning actions to conserve natural resources and preserve the biodiversity in this basin. Future studies should in-
tegrate other factors that control LULC changes and their effects on the environmental quality of the Caatinga biome.

Author statement
Maria da Conceição de Sousa: Conceptualization, Writing- Original draft preparation, Data curation. Gustavo Vieira Veloso:
Data curation, Methodology. Lucas Carvalho Gomes: Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Elpidio Inácio Fernandes-Filho and Teó-
genes Senna de Oliveira: Conceptualization, Supervision, Methodology, Writing- Reviewing and Editing.

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I agree with the above statements and declare that this submission follows the policies of Solid State Ionics as outlined in the
Guide for Authors and in the Ethical Statement.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.

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M. da Conceição de Sousa et al. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 24 (2021) 100646

Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for the useful comments. We also thank the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento
de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Financial Code 001 for the scholarship for the first author.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2021.100646.

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