Mapbiomas Water statistics



Water masses size distribution

In the Mapbiomas Water dataset, we found 656748 water masses classified as “2 - artificial water body (anthropic dams)”.

In the Solvik dataset, we found 1150123 water masses mapped in Brazil.

The size of these bodies of water ranged from 0.074 to 7076.765 hectares in the Mapbiomas dataset. The total area is estimated at 1369764.42 hectares.

In the Solvik dataset, they ranged from 0.008 to 387.736 hectares. The total area is estimated at 704804.14 hectares.

Below is the distribution of size of all of these water masses:



A closer look at the impoundments below 5ha in area:



And below is the distribution of size and number, according to size classes.







Land use in the vicinity



In Google Earth Engine, we transformed the water areas into vectors, and drew polygons containing the water area, plus a buffer area of 200 meters. Then, we analyzed the profile of land use in these areas using the Mapbiomas land use data collection 8, as well as the Mapbiomas Pasture, Mining and Irrigation products as well.

Below shows the total sum of areas in these buffer areas, according to the land use type.



Below is the distribution of the percentage of the buffer area covered by each land cover class. The histograms below show further a dominance of pasture in the vicinity of the impoundments.





Considering that the buffer areas include the water mass area, the assumption was that every water mass polygon would contain at least one pixel of water area. That turned out to not be the case. Out of the 656748 Mapbiomas and 1150123 Solvik areas, only 274898 and 274898 have some water area contained in it, respectively.

Not all mapped impoundment areas have pasture area detected in the vicinity: Out of the 656748 Mapbiomas and 1150123 Solvik areas, only 519724 and 941006 have some pasture area in their vicinities, respectively.



Estimating total cattle impoundment areas



There are many criteria to classify what we consider to be more likely a cattle impoundment, within the ones mapped in these two datasets. Below is the estimation of cattle impoundment area per state, considering different criteria.

Table with impoundment area per state in 2017, for each set of criteria and data source

  • Total: All mapped impoundments in each dataset
  • Criteria 1: Only impoundments that have any pasture or grassland identified in the vicinity.
  • Criteria 2: Impoundments that have any pasture or grassland identified in the vicinity, and that do not have any mining or irrigation area mapped in the vicinity.
  • Criteria 3: Impoundments that 1) have more than 10% pasture or grassland identified in the vicinity, 2) do not have any mining or irrigation area mapped in the vicinity.
  • Criteria 4: Impoundments that 1) have more than 10% pasture or grassland identified in the vicinity, 2) do not have any mining or irrigation area mapped in the vicinity, and 3) have total area below 50ha.
state source total criteria1 criteria2 criteria22 criteria3 criteria4 criteria44
RS Mapbiomas_water 328665 309233 174613 174608 142549 126072 126068
CE Mapbiomas_water 105206 98928 96700 96675 59596 37442 37429
GO Mapbiomas_water 89283 85972 76857 76823 65718 62842 62723
MG Mapbiomas_water 81046 78130 68080 67951 61152 55254 54865
MT Mapbiomas_water 81031 77638 69139 69026 62191 57758 57588
PA Mapbiomas_water 75570 66520 52488 52349 44350 41746 41397
MA Mapbiomas_water 68667 54109 53361 53306 42624 27721 27460
BA Mapbiomas_water 67248 63088 60169 59846 53428 37531 37003
SP Mapbiomas_water 65849 49006 45968 45818 29490 28585 28420
RO Mapbiomas_water 49550 48139 45580 45497 42564 38339 38136
MS Mapbiomas_water 42623 36967 36617 36561 29926 29066 28915
RN Mapbiomas_water 39715 37577 37574 37365 33339 20371 20111
AM Mapbiomas_water 38486 23143 22838 22770 14455 13444 13288
SC Mapbiomas_water 31390 27084 24837 24829 15654 15315 15247
PI Mapbiomas_water 30100 28207 28158 28052 20367 13265 13182
TO Mapbiomas_water 29394 28548 25414 25409 23005 22298 22264
PR Mapbiomas_water 28978 19930 19169 19068 9081 8402 8329
PB Mapbiomas_water 27353 26088 26065 25995 20054 15400 15212
PE Mapbiomas_water 23446 21362 20279 20198 17421 14974 14698
AC Mapbiomas_water 17791 17739 17739 17739 17672 17086 17086
ES Mapbiomas_water 12015 11734 11572 11567 10987 10987 10968
RR Mapbiomas_water 10299 9810 9806 9805 8125 6567 6564
RJ Mapbiomas_water 9278 8135 8126 7989 5119 4851 4763
AL Mapbiomas_water 6465 6328 6328 6322 5428 3912 3906
SE Mapbiomas_water 5908 5792 5527 5486 5285 4340 4234
AP Mapbiomas_water 3219 2223 2188 2177 844 844 816
DF Mapbiomas_water 1189 1144 1000 1000 787 787 787
RS Solvik_et_al 233682 220391 129160 129160 107946 97904 97904
GO Solvik_et_al 55996 53697 47814 47803 43577 43443 43429
SP Solvik_et_al 54964 40546 38087 38049 27364 27129 27113
MT Solvik_et_al 49093 47721 45170 45165 41933 41877 41817
MG Solvik_et_al 46996 45218 40422 40412 36386 36386 36233
CE Solvik_et_al 38447 35068 34956 34956 25198 25005 24991
MS Solvik_et_al 30783 28816 28641 28637 25370 25370 25285
PA Solvik_et_al 29255 29145 25347 25347 25162 25061 25043
RO Solvik_et_al 26505 26483 25883 25882 25702 25702 25697
MA Solvik_et_al 21597 21222 21115 21111 20093 20093 20089
PR Solvik_et_al 20571 13598 13484 13471 7568 7494 7482
TO Solvik_et_al 17523 17340 16926 16926 16048 15948 15948
SC Solvik_et_al 13225 11088 10727 10725 7166 7166 7165
BA Solvik_et_al 12782 12355 11984 11972 11549 11549 11494
RN Solvik_et_al 10789 10698 10697 10696 9788 9713 9705
PB Solvik_et_al 10165 9831 9828 9801 8668 8542 8479
AC Solvik_et_al 8736 8735 8735 8735 8734 8734 8734
PE Solvik_et_al 6394 6310 6283 6273 5885 5885 5847
PI Solvik_et_al 5624 5112 5098 5097 3885 3885 3869
RJ Solvik_et_al 3920 3863 3858 3858 3694 3694 3691
ES Solvik_et_al 3338 3319 3294 3294 3186 3186 3184
AM Solvik_et_al 1977 1964 1932 1932 1914 1914 1913
RR Solvik_et_al 1188 1186 1181 1181 1178 1178 1178
AL Solvik_et_al 491 489 489 489 485 485 485
DF Solvik_et_al 476 456 333 333 249 249 249
SE Solvik_et_al 151 150 150 150 146 146 146
AP Solvik_et_al 133 131 105 105 103 103 103