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Abstract
The general results disclosed by the State of Acre’s final report
(2000) showed that part of the Southeast area of the State has been
modified for some decades by an occupation process triggered by
deforestation and agricultural and cattle raising activities. According to
this report, deforestation and burning of vegetation by human activities
were the major transformers of the State landscapes and have increased
in the last decades. Therefore, the main purpose of this work was to
develop a Degradation Index (DI) that would measure the current stage
of environmental degradation of the 22 municipalities of State of Acre
in the North region of Brazil also attempting to group them in clusters
to verify similar characteristics among them. The results indicate that
the State of Acre has an average DI of 30,74%, with minimum DI’s in
the municipalities of Cruzeiro do Sul and Mâncio Lima with DI equal to
zero and Manoel Urbano with a DI equal to 1,80%. The cluster analysis
showed that certain regions present a good state of environmental
conservation, but also made clear that some degradation indicators
present extremely high values.