Beyond Net Change: Four Decades of Land Use and Land Cover Trajectories Across Brazil

Brazil is among the global leaders of native vegetation conversion and agricultural expansion rates. The rates of native vegetation suppression and recovery, as well as the drivers underlying land conversion dynamics, vary among the six Brazilian biomes. Here we analyze the trajectories of four native vegetation types, three anthropic classes and water in Brazil and its biomes between 1985 and 2024. Using trajectory analysis, we also investigate land change history in areas of cropland expansion. The proportion of trajectories varied between native vegetation types and biomes, with forests showing a larger proportion of stable areas, savannas a higher proportion of loss and grasslands and wetlands a greater proportion of trajectories involving alternation, mostly in the Pantanal. Pasture gain was proportionally higher in Pantanal and the Amazon while in the Atlantic Forest its loss was proportionally higher than in other biomes. Gain of croplands was proportionally higher in the Amazon, Cerrado and Caatinga. The proportion of native vegetation and pasture trajectories in areas of croplands expansion also varied markedly between and within biomes. Our analysis advances the original trajectories method by examining per-pixel trajectories across different classes, revealing crucial regional differences in land use history.