Vegetation change in Brazil’s dryland ecoregions and the relationship to crop production and environmental factors: Cerrado, Caatinga, and Mato Grosso, 2001–2009
South America’s drylands remain some of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet. Yet, we know very little about the dynamics of land-use and land-cover change (LUCC) in these understudied regions. Our objective is to map vegetation change in Brazil’s three largest dryland ecoregions – the Cerrado, Caatinga, and Mato Grosso seasonal forests – using MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) data from 2001 to 2009 at the scale of the municipality.