About the articles and the data

How the articles were made, which version exists in each one, where the data come from and which old scripts each article grew out of.

The articles grew out of a folder of old work scripts: ArcMap tools, ArcGIS Pro arcpy scripts, PostGIS queries and Python routines, from my time working on deforestation and fire monitoring in Brazil’s protected areas. Each script was rebuilt with public data and became an article with one version for each program.

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Language of the code

The articles are translated into English, but the data, field names and variable names are in Portuguese, as in the original scripts and in the Brazilian datasets (ucs = protected areas, entorno = surroundings, ano = year, area_ha = area in hectares). Each article lists the names it uses. Code comments and printed messages are in English. The figures were made for the Portuguese version and keep their Portuguese labels.

Which version exists in each article

● = version in the article; ✔ = code run and checked against the real data.
Article	ArcGIS Pro	QGIS	PostGIS	Python	Extra
1. Equivalences	●	●	●	●	ArcMap → Pro
2. Inside and around	●	● ✔	● ✔	● ✔
3. PRODES in protected areas	●	● ✔	● ✔	● ✔
4. Fire hotspots	●	● ✔	● ✔	● ✔
5. Date fields	●	● ✔	● ✔	● ✔	Power BI
6. Monthly cumulative table	●	● ✔	● ✔	● ✔	Power BI
7. Joining attributes	●	● ✔	● ✔	● ✔
8. CAR in protected areas	●	● ✔	● ✔	● ✔
9. Kernel density	●	● ✔	● ✔	● ✔
10. Automated maps	●	● ✔	●	● ✔	ArcMap
11. PDF report	●	● ✔	● ✔	● ✔	Quarto ✔
12. Prioritization	●	● ✔	● ✔	● ✔
13. Updating without duplicates	●	● ✔	● ✔	● ✔

About the ArcGIS versions

The ArcGIS Pro and ArcMap versions follow the documentation and the original scripts, but were not run here, because they need a license. The QGIS (4.2), PostGIS (3.5) and Python (geopandas 1.x) versions were run with data from October 2026, and each article’s numbers come from them. If you find an error in an ArcGIS version, let me know.

Articles data

All articles use the same file, dados/artigos.gpkg, a GeoPackage that opens in QGIS, ArcGIS Pro and Python. A script downloads everything from the official sources in about a minute:

Download the script (baixar_dados_artigos.sh)

bash baixar_dados_artigos.sh        # needs GDAL (ogr2ogr) and curl

Layer	Source	Area
`ucs`	MMA, National Register of Protected Areas (CNUC, August 2025), without private reserves (RPPNs)	Amazon and Cerrado
`ucs_entorno`	computed: 3 km band around the protected areas, minus all protected areas	Amazon and Cerrado
`deter`	INPE, DETER Amazon (WFS), since January 2024	Amazon
`prodes_amz`	INPE, PRODES Legal Amazon (WFS), since 2019	Amazon
`prodes_cerrado`	INPE, PRODES Cerrado (WFS), since 2019	Cerrado
`embargos`	IBAMA, embargoed areas (WFS), without names or tax IDs	Amazon
`car`	SICAR, Rural Environmental Registry properties in Pará (WFS)	Amazon
`amazonia_legal`	INPE, Legal Amazon boundary	—

The study areas are the Novo Progresso (Pará) region, the same as in the course, and the Chapada dos Veadeiros (Goiás) region, used only for PRODES Cerrado. For another region, change the AMZ and CER coordinates at the top of the script.

Using it in PostGIS

Load the GeoPackage into an artigos schema of the course database:

psql -d monitoramento_ambiental -c "CREATE SCHEMA IF NOT EXISTS artigos;"
ogr2ogr -f PostgreSQL PG:dbname=monitoramento_ambiental dados/artigos.gpkg \
  -lco SCHEMA=artigos -lco GEOMETRY_NAME=geom -lco FID=fid

Paths in the code

The ArcGIS Pro and QGIS code uses the folder C:\dados (or C:/dados), and the Python code uses a dados folder next to the script. Replace them with the path where you saved the GeoPackage.

Where they came from

Old script (type)	Original program	Article
Weekly, daily and monthly DETER clipping by protected area	ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro (`arcpy`)	2, 6
PRODES Amazon and PRODES Cerrado in protected areas	ArcGIS Pro (script tool)	3
Fire hotspots in the last 24 h and 48 h in protected areas	ArcGIS Pro + ArcGIS Online	4
Burned area (inside and outside protected areas)	ArcGIS Pro + PostgreSQL database	2, 5
Monthly DETER dashboard (cumulative with zero-filled months)	ArcGIS Pro + pandas	6
DETER classes as columns, nulls to zero	ArcMap	6
Embargoes and infraction notices with protected area data	ArcGIS Pro (cursors)	7
MapBiomas alerts: e-mails concatenated per alert	ArcGIS Pro	7
CAR and SIGEF in protected areas	ArcGIS Pro	8
Normalized kernel density	ArcGIS Pro (Spatial Analyst)	9
Daily, weekly and monthly maps per protected area	ArcMap (`arcpy.mapping`)	10
Information note in PDF	ArcGIS Pro + fpdf	11
Alert prioritization in clusters	ArcGIS Pro (`AggregatePolygons`)	12
Layer updates (delete and append)	all	13

No internal data, network paths, passwords or personal data from the original scripts were used. Where the original depended on a restricted dataset (Brasil MAIS program alerts, fire brigade records), the article uses an equivalent public dataset.

Versão em português

Reuse

CC BY 4.0

Citation

BibTeX citation:

@misc{untitled,
  author = {},
  publisher = {Hendesson Alves},
  title = {About the Articles and the Data},
  url = {https://hendesson.github.io/en/articles/about.html},
  langid = {en}
}

For attribution, please cite this work as:

“About the Articles and the Data.” n.d. In Geoprocessing Articles for Environmental Monitoring. Preprint, Hendesson Alves. https://hendesson.github.io/en/articles/about.html.