Launches
MapBiomas Amazonía is a mapping tool that allows monitoring land use changes and water surface throughout the Amazon and tracking pressures on its forests and natural ecosystems. Each year a new set of land cover and land use maps is launched, improved, and expanded for the corresponding new period.
To date, the MapBiomas Amazon initiative has produced four collections of annual land cover and land use maps and a collection of maps of water surface. Access the recordings of each launch.
MapBiomas Water Amazon Countries 1.0 Collection (1985 - 2021)
The launch of MapBiomas Agua, titled "Water, a Life Indicator: 23 Years of Changes in Amazonian Countries," is organized by the Amazon Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information Network (RAISG) and the MapBiomas initiative.
MapBiomas Amazon 4.0 Collection (1985 - 2021)
The most recent data from MapBiomas Amazonía reinforce the need for integrated international action to reverse the current trend of destruction that, if it persists, will push the biome beyond its point of no return by the end of this decade.
In 1985, only 6% (around 50 million hectares) of the Amazon had been transformed into anthropic areas, such as pastures, crops, mining or urban areas. In 2021, this area almost tripled, reaching 15% (almost 125 million hectares) of the entire region. It was a net loss of nearly 10% of its natural vegetation in just 37 years. If the current trend verified by MapBiomas Amazonía continues, the biome, which is a carbon sink of planetary importance, will reach the point of no return, irreversibly affecting its ecosystem services, and could become a savannah.
MapBiomas Amazon 3.0 Collection (1985 - 2020)
Between 1985 and 2020, the Amazon lost 52% of its glaciers and 74.6 million hectares of its natural vegetation cover, an area equivalent to the territory of Chile. In the same period, there was a 656% growth in mining, 130% in urban infrastructure, and 151% in agriculture and livestock. This unprecedented mapping incorporates the entire Amazon, from the Andes, passing through the Amazon plain and reaching the transitions with the Cerrado and Pantanal.
MapBiomas Amazon 2.0 Collection (1985 - 2018)
Collection 2.0 provided more than 3 decades of Amazonian land cover and land-use history in annual maps from 1985 to 2018 with a resolution of 30 meters. The MapBiomas Amazon platform offers the possibility to visualize the maps at regional, national, and even local levels, identifying areas covered with forests, natural fields, mangroves, agricultural and livestock, and rivers, among other types. It is possible to understand the dynamics of land-use changes inside and outside an Indigenous Territory or a Protected Area.
A great contribution in this Second Collection is that the platform not only offers maps but also statistics presented in tables and dynamic graphs with changes in use in the period the user requires, being freely accessible and downloadable. The Second Collection of MapBiomas Amazon has been generated by technicians and specialists from each of the countries that are part of the Amazon, which allows for greater accuracy in the results.
MapBiomas Amazon Collection 1.0 (2000 - 2017)
The inaugural product of MapBiomas Amazonia is the First Collection of Annual Land Cover and Land Use Maps of the Amazon (2000 - 2017), comprising annual maps of the entire Amazon region, prepared by the technical teams of each country.
The unpublished mapping incorporates the entire Pan-Amazon region, from the Andes through the Amazon plain, and reaching the transitions with the Cerrado and Pantanal. The results obtained indicate that in the period from 2000 to 2017, despite maintaining 85% native forest cover, the region lost 29.5 million hectares (equivalent to the territory of Ecuador). On the other hand, during this same period there was a 41% growth in the area of agriculture and livestock.