CHANGES IN LAND USE AND COVER IN THE WESTERN REGION OF BAHIA AS FROM AGRICULTURAL EXPANSION

The conversion of natural vegetation into agricultural areas is recurrent in various parts of the world, Today, this is particularly the case in places where the production of raw materials is the primary means of balance of trade support. In Brazil, this process has been ongoing since the colonial times. However, at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, even with the extension of environmental discussions and the pursuit of sustainability, has intensively reached major borders, deforesting and causing the destruction of biomes, as well as increased pollution and the unbridled use of water resources. Among these new farm fronts is the far west of Bahia, which houses twelve out of the twenty-four cities of the mesoregion. In light of this, from remote sensing and geoprocessing techniques, this research has sought to quantify changes in land use over thirty years (1985-2015). To this end, images from the Landsat 5 and 8 Satellite series were used, which after being automatically segmented in the Spring software have been manually sorted, creating thematic maps. The results pointed out that between 1985 and 2015, the extreme west of Bahia has lost approximately 21,7 thousand km(2) of native vegetation from the 385% increase in agricultural areas, with emphasis on those watered by pivots.