This project involves the development of a methodology for the accurate and systematic monitoring of temporal and spatial patterns of land use changes due to dynamics in bioenergy production. The designed method should be able to contribute to the development of a national land use change monitoring system in Brazil. 

An innovative aspect of this project concerns the development of remote sensing techniques in which the combined use of optical and radar data could result in better accuracies and coverage than has been obtained so far with singular techniques. It is expected that the proposed method will be able to distinguish main land use classes such as cropland, pasture and forest, as well as to discriminate different crop types, rangeland and pastures, and forest types. The developed method will be applied for two case study regions located in the State of Sao Paulo and in Mato Grosso, in order to calibrate the method and allow for extensive ground truthing of the data. Based on the findings of the case study area, which is relatively small in order to allow for direct ground surveying but wide enough to ensure a substantial degree of generality for the map retrieval procedures, a method is conceived to properly upscale the remote sensing techniques for larger areas in Brazil. Based on the sequential maps that are developed for the larger areas, a first order environmental and socio-economic impact analysis of the expansion of sugar cane area is made in which GHG emissions, impact on soil water and biodiversity are addressed, as well as impacts of food production, GDP and employment. The data developed in this project will be implemented in a database management system which will allow for interactive exchange and analysis of the data and will ensure access for potential users. As the main objective of this project is the methodological development, one of its results is the recommendation of mapping protocol for the up scaling and implementation of the remote.