Land Use and Land Cover Products for Agricultural Mapping Applications in Brazil: Challenges and Limitations
Reliable remote sensing-based Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) information is crucial for assessing Earth’s surface activities. Brazil’s agricultural dynamics, including year-round cropping, multiple cropping, and regional climate variability, make LULC monitoring a highly challenging task. The countr...
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| Format: | Article |
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MDPI AG
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Remote Sensing |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/17/13/2324 |
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| author | Priscilla Azevedo dos Santos Marcos Adami Michelle Cristina Araujo Picoli Victor Hugo Rohden Prudente Júlio César Dalla Mora Esquerdo Gilberto Ribeiro de Queiroz Cleverton Tiago Carneiro de Santana Michel Eustáquio Dantas Chaves |
| author_facet | Priscilla Azevedo dos Santos Marcos Adami Michelle Cristina Araujo Picoli Victor Hugo Rohden Prudente Júlio César Dalla Mora Esquerdo Gilberto Ribeiro de Queiroz Cleverton Tiago Carneiro de Santana Michel Eustáquio Dantas Chaves |
| author_sort | Priscilla Azevedo dos Santos |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Reliable remote sensing-based Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) information is crucial for assessing Earth’s surface activities. Brazil’s agricultural dynamics, including year-round cropping, multiple cropping, and regional climate variability, make LULC monitoring a highly challenging task. The country has thirteen remote sensing-based LULC products specifically tailored for this purpose. However, the differences and the results of these products have not yet been synthesized to provide coherent guidance in assessing their spatio-temporal agricultural dynamics and identifying promising approaches and issues that affect LULC analysis. This review represents the first comprehensive assessment of the advantages, challenges, and limitations, highlighting the main issues when dealing with contrasting LULC maps. These challenges include incompatibility, a lack of updates, non-systematic classification ontologies, and insufficient data to monitor Brazilian LULC information. The consequences include impacts on intercropping estimation, diminished representation or misrepresentation of croplands; temporal discontinuity; an insufficient number of classes for subannual cropping evaluation; and reduced compatibility, comparability, and spectral separability. The study provides insights into the use of these products as primary input data for remote sensing-based applications. Moreover, it provides prospects for enhancing existing mapping efforts or developing new national-level initiatives to represent the spatio-temporal variation of Brazilian agriculture. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ff2182c291cc408998905b8f0a15dcde |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2072-4292 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-07-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Remote Sensing |
| spelling | doaj-art-ff2182c291cc408998905b8f0a15dcde2025-08-20T02:36:27ZengMDPI AGRemote Sensing2072-42922025-07-011713232410.3390/rs17132324Land Use and Land Cover Products for Agricultural Mapping Applications in Brazil: Challenges and LimitationsPriscilla Azevedo dos Santos0Marcos Adami1Michelle Cristina Araujo Picoli2Victor Hugo Rohden Prudente3Júlio César Dalla Mora Esquerdo4Gilberto Ribeiro de Queiroz5Cleverton Tiago Carneiro de Santana6Michel Eustáquio Dantas Chaves7Postgraduation Program in Remote Sensing (PGSER), Coordination of Teaching, Research and Extension (COEPE), National Institute for Space Research (INPE), 1758 Astronautas Ave., São José dos Campos 12227-010, SP, BrazilPostgraduation Program in Remote Sensing (PGSER), Coordination of Teaching, Research and Extension (COEPE), National Institute for Space Research (INPE), 1758 Astronautas Ave., São José dos Campos 12227-010, SP, BrazilStatistics Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 00153 Rome, ItalySchool for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), University of Michigan (UofM), 440 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USAEmbrapa Digital Agriculture, Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), 209 André Tosello St., Campinas 13083-886, SP, BrazilEarth Observation and Geoinformation Division (DIOTG), General Coordination of Earth Sciences (CG-CT), National Institute for Space Research (INPE), 1758 Astronautas Ave., São José dos Campos 12227-010, SP, BrazilPostgraduation Program in Remote Sensing (PGSER), Coordination of Teaching, Research and Extension (COEPE), National Institute for Space Research (INPE), 1758 Astronautas Ave., São José dos Campos 12227-010, SP, BrazilSchool of Sciences and Engineering, São Paulo State University (UNESP), Tupã 17602-496, SP, BrazilReliable remote sensing-based Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) information is crucial for assessing Earth’s surface activities. Brazil’s agricultural dynamics, including year-round cropping, multiple cropping, and regional climate variability, make LULC monitoring a highly challenging task. The country has thirteen remote sensing-based LULC products specifically tailored for this purpose. However, the differences and the results of these products have not yet been synthesized to provide coherent guidance in assessing their spatio-temporal agricultural dynamics and identifying promising approaches and issues that affect LULC analysis. This review represents the first comprehensive assessment of the advantages, challenges, and limitations, highlighting the main issues when dealing with contrasting LULC maps. These challenges include incompatibility, a lack of updates, non-systematic classification ontologies, and insufficient data to monitor Brazilian LULC information. The consequences include impacts on intercropping estimation, diminished representation or misrepresentation of croplands; temporal discontinuity; an insufficient number of classes for subannual cropping evaluation; and reduced compatibility, comparability, and spectral separability. The study provides insights into the use of these products as primary input data for remote sensing-based applications. Moreover, it provides prospects for enhancing existing mapping efforts or developing new national-level initiatives to represent the spatio-temporal variation of Brazilian agriculture.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/17/13/2324LULC changecroplandthematic mapsmappingremote sensingBrazil |
| spellingShingle | Priscilla Azevedo dos Santos Marcos Adami Michelle Cristina Araujo Picoli Victor Hugo Rohden Prudente Júlio César Dalla Mora Esquerdo Gilberto Ribeiro de Queiroz Cleverton Tiago Carneiro de Santana Michel Eustáquio Dantas Chaves Land Use and Land Cover Products for Agricultural Mapping Applications in Brazil: Challenges and Limitations Remote Sensing LULC change cropland thematic maps mapping remote sensing Brazil |
| title | Land Use and Land Cover Products for Agricultural Mapping Applications in Brazil: Challenges and Limitations |
| title_full | Land Use and Land Cover Products for Agricultural Mapping Applications in Brazil: Challenges and Limitations |
| title_fullStr | Land Use and Land Cover Products for Agricultural Mapping Applications in Brazil: Challenges and Limitations |
| title_full_unstemmed | Land Use and Land Cover Products for Agricultural Mapping Applications in Brazil: Challenges and Limitations |
| title_short | Land Use and Land Cover Products for Agricultural Mapping Applications in Brazil: Challenges and Limitations |
| title_sort | land use and land cover products for agricultural mapping applications in brazil challenges and limitations |
| topic | LULC change cropland thematic maps mapping remote sensing Brazil |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/17/13/2324 |
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