With the objective of enabling comparability with more updated products, IBGE releases today in digital format, the group of historical data on the vegetation of Brazil produced in the 1970's and 80's, based on the projects Radam (Amazon Radar), which started in 1970, and Radambrasil, which resulted from the expansion of the original product over the national territory in 1975. Previously available in printed version, this mapping has been digitized and adjusted, so as to become a potential starting point for mappings to come.

By using this material, one can, for example, have a map with the previous vegetation of Brazil at the 1:5,000,000 scale (in which 1 cm = 50 km), information modeling to generate environmental statistics of Brazilian states, measures of the amount of vegetation preserved, by type of vegetation, and a comparison of deforestation levels, including areas deforested at the time of the previous mapping and nowadays.

Projects Radam and Radambrasil obtained data on geology, soils, vegetation, relief, land use and cartography in the 1970's and '80s. Radam is considered the biggest project on level of coverage of natural resources in Brazil, and made use of images obtained by airborne radar. Besides being a potential tool for the analysis and integration of the information presented by IBGE, this product stands out as a historical reference on the Brazilian vegetation for current and future researches and studies.

To access the group of historical data on the vegetation of Brazil, please click on ftp://geoftp.ibge.gov.br/mapas_tematicos/vegetacao/.

Documento sem título

The historical data are available as a georeferenced digital file in the shape format, with an associated database, allowing these data to be dealt with in a SIG (Geographic Information System) environment. These data have been adjusted to the Continuous Cartographic Base of Brazil (BCIM) at a 1:1,000,000 scale (1 cm = 10 km) and with a rather compatible legend due to the evolution of phytogeographic mapping (geographic distribution of vegetation) throughout the 1970's and '80s.

This work has direct application in the activities of geosciences and related sciences, in all its fields (geography, cartography, geodetics, national resources, and others). It is important for statistics, particularly for the preservation of valuable material produced at the time of Radam and Radambrasil projects, and also a contribution to the history of thematic cartography development and of remote sensing in the country, and mainly in IBGE.

Project Radam was a pioneered in the mapping of Brazilian vegetation

Created in 1970, project Radam started the aerial surveying and the obtaining of data on geology, soils, vegetation, relief, land use and cartography in part of the Brazilian territory in 1971. From 1975 on, the project was expanded to all the national territory, and renamed as Project Radambrasil.

In order to have the necessary information, Radam used radars capable of overcoming the difficulties to obtain homogeneous images and high-quality scenes in the Amazon region, where the incidence of clouds and intermittent rain restricted the access to conventional aerial photographs. Because of the success of the method employed and the quality of responses, the original Radam area was gradually increased to take up all the Legal Amazon, at first, and then the whole Brazilian territory, in 1975.

Based on the interpretation of 555 semi-controlled mosaics (a collection of radar images in which a succession of printed copies were manually assembled) of radar images, at a 1:250,000 scale (1 cm = 2.5 km), intense work was developed (in the office and in the field) by a multidisciplinary staff of about 700 professionals (geologists, forest engineers, agricultural engineers, naturalists, biologists, cartographic engineers, among others). The result was the production of 38 volumes of the series Surveying of Natural Resources, which contains reports and thematic maps at the 1:1,000,000 scale (1 cm = 10 km) on geology, geomorphology (relief), pedology (soils), vegetation and potential land use.

Besides the integrated mapping of natural resources from all over the national territory, the project also generated products such as the Predictive Metallogenetic mapping ( a survey which integrates geological, geophysical and geochemical data and the characteristics of mining with the objective of defining areas with different potentialities and more sustainable exploration for mining) and of the Water Resources Potential of most of the Northeast Region; 275 planimetric charts for an area of 4,300,210 km 2 of the Legal Amazon; 551 cartographic originals from all the national territory and 132 radar image charts from several regions, all of them at the scale 1:250,000 (1 cm = 2.5 km).

As stated by Decree no. 91,295, of 31/08/85, the group of data generated by Radambrasil and all its specialists were transferred and incorporated to IBGE, starting, thus, a new series of activities related to the update of data. Those dates are stored in a Database for Environmental Information (BDIA) aiming at use in a SIG environment.