Deforestation in the Amazon

This NASA animation on land cover change zooms into Rondonia, Brazil. It starts with a Landsat satellite image taken in 1975 and dissolves into a second image of the same region taken in 2009 that illustrates a significant amount of land use change.

Go To:

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003600/a003637/index.html

NASA Visualization Studio

Notes From Our Reviewers

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Teaching Tips

It is suggested that this be used as part of a unit on ecosystems and climate change.

There is no color key provided for the images. However, the images clearly indicate significant land cover change.

About the Science

Tropical forests act as major carbon 'sinks', places where ambient carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be absorbed by growing things and sequestered for years.

Data taken in 1975 and 2009 from the Landsat series of spacecraft shows enormous tracts of forest disappearing in Rondonia, Brazil.

Comments from expert scientist: Short and easy to read piece on a globally important topic. Visuals clearly show the effect of deforestation on land cover. There are a number of other similar NASA websites that seem more up to date.

About the Pedagogy

Scaffolding of the visualization is provided in accompanying text.

Technical Details

The visualization is very easy to use.

Multiple versions of the visualization are provided in different resolutions and formats.