Worldwide Research on Land Use and Land Cover in the Amazon Region

Abstract

Land cover is an important descriptor of the earth’s terrestrial surface. It is also crucial to determine the biophysical processes in global environmental change. Land-use change showcases the management of the land while revealing what motivated the alteration of the land cover. The type of land use can represent local economic and social benefits, framed towards regional sustainable development. The Amazon stands out for being the largest tropical forest globally, with the most extraordinary biodiversity, and plays an essential role in climate regulation. The present work proposes to carry out a bibliometric analysis of 1590 articles indexed in the Scopus database. It uses both Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer software for the evaluation of author keywords, authors, and countries. The method encompasses (i) search criteria, (ii) search and document compilation, (iii) software selection and data extraction, and (iv) data analysis. The results classify the main research fields into nine main topics with increasing relevance: ‘Amazon’, ‘deforestation’, ‘remote sensing’, ‘land use and land cover change’, and ‘land use’. In conclusion, the cocitation authors’ network reveals the development of such areas and the interest they present due to their worldwide importance.