Deforestation and land use and land cover changes in protected areas of the Brazilian Cerrado: impacts on the fire-driven emissions of fine particulate aerosols pollutants

Although the current Amazon large-scale deforestation boom is not identified in other Brazilian biomes, local areas of the Cerrado are showing increasing deforestation. We have assessed the historical deforestation patterns focusing on the 2018–2019 biennium in two Protected Areas (PAs) of the Cerrado (Rio Preto and Bacia do Rio de Janeiro) where this process was identified, using the Brazilian official deforestation data. Both PAs are situated within an important Cerrado agricultural frontier, suffering intense pressure on Land Use and Land Cover (LULC). We have also estimated the impact of this increasing deforestation on fire emissions using the Brazilian Biomass Burning Emission Model with Fire Radiative Power (3BEM_FRP) model. In the Rio Preto PA the 2018 and 2019 deforestation rates were 73.5% and 188.0% higher than those observed in 2017, while at the Bacia do Rio de Janeiro PA this increase was 23.9% and 312.3%, suggesting that they are not currently effective at curbing deforestation. Most deforested polygons were converted into agriculture or pasturelands, and trends point to higher deforestation rates in 2020. Fire emissions and deforestation were not correlated, suggesting that non-deforestation fire drivers such as meteorological conditions and land management are important drivers of Cerrado biome fire emissions.