Climate Change and Land Use Pattern in Brazil

The objective of this chapter is to understand the impacts of climate change on the land use pattern in Brazil. To do so, an economic model for optimal land use allocation was used, this model was derived from the profit maximization problem of a representative agent that has six options of land use: soybean, corn, sugar cane, other crops, pastureland, and forests. From the estimated coefficients of the model, simulations were carried using forecast data for temperature and precipitation in three periods of times 2010–39, 2040–69, and 2070–99. The results varied greatly in different regions but in general, the area for pastureland increased, while the areas for forests declined.