Pre-harvest sugarcane burning: A statistical analysis of the environmental impacts of a regulatory change in the energy sector

Abstract

We evaluate the efficiency of a regulatory change in sugarcane production (Law N°11.241/2002) that gradually banish the pre-harvest burning in the sugarcane production sector in the São Paulo state in Brazil, analyzing the occurrences of fires detected by satellite. To estimate the spatio-temporal dynamics of fire occurrence we use a structural representation in a log-Gaussian Cox process, decomposing the intensity function in components of trend, seasonality, cycles, covariates and spatial effects. The results have provided evidence that the trend component reflects the consistent reduction in fire occurrences, suggesting the efficiency of the mitigation actions implemented in the São Paulo state, and indicating a permanent advance in the environmental sustainability of this form of renewable energy production.

Keywords

• Sugarcane
• Regulatory changes
• Spatio-temporal models
• Log-Gaussian Cox process