# Fires Drive Long-Term Environmental Degradation in the Amazon Basin
## 3 Results  
In the spatial analysis of the GPP, the absorption of C by the Amazon Basin over the last 19 years was evaluated (Figure 2). The time series of C absorption/pixel ranged from 0.050 kg C m\({}^{-2}\) year\({}^{-1}\) to 0.103 kg C m\({}^{-2}\) year\({}^{-1}\). During this series, there were highlights for the years 2009 (0.05 kg C m\({}^{-2}\) year\({}^{-1}\)), 2016 (0.10 kg C m\({}^{-2}\) year\({}^{-1}\)), and 2018 (0.08 kg C m\({}^{-2}\) year\({}^{-1}\)). Spatially, the lowest identified GPP values found around the Amazon were mainly in the south (S), southeast (SE), southwest (SW), west (W), and northwest (NW) regions. Conversely, the highest GPP values occurred in the central region, especially at the beginning of the time series. However, after 2011, there was a significant increase in GPP values in the SE region of the Amazon. The rainfall time series showed that the S, SW, and W regions consistently had rainfall below 1000 mm year\({}^{-1}\), which is lower than the climatological average recorded in the Amazon (2200 mm), as occurred in the NW region (see Figure S1). Note that in 2005, 2010, and 2015, there was a reduction in rainfall, especially in 2015, when the rainfall was less than 1640 mm. The values for these drought years were considered the most severe of this century [36; 38]. Furthermore, a significant decrease in rainfall occurred in Bolivia and the Arc of deforestation, which covers eastern and southern Para. This decrease was followed  
Figure 2: Measurement of each annual pixel for the gross primary productivity (GPP, kg C m\({}^{-2}\) year\({}^{-1}\)) variable of the Amazon Basin between 2001 and 2019. Red dots indicate the occurrence of El Niño (see Figure S2). Notice that the color scales vary slightly from year to year. by that in the states of Mato Grosso, Rondonia, and Acre in the Brazilian Amazon, which experienced rainfall below 1360 mm. In extreme cases, these values were less than 520 mm and were characterized by severe drought events. The spatial analysis of the annual SPI (Figure 3) revealed that the entire Amazon received average rainfall at the beginning of the time series until mid-2008, with a predominance in the near-normal category. However, some regions experienced variations in wet and dry conditions in the moderate and severe-moderate categories. From 2009 onwards, the high variability of wet and dry regimes in the extreme categories occurred throughout the Amazon, especially in 2010, and 2015, coinciding with years of El Nino influence. One exception occurred in 2005, in which the variability was not related to El Nino, but to sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the north tropical Atlantic [80]. Moreover, the regions in the extremely wet category, as defined by the SPI, correspond to the regions previously identified by the GPP (Figure 2) and rainfall maps (Figure S1). After analyzing the annual SPI (Figure 3, quantified in Table S1), the occurrences of the annual burned area of the Amazon were evaluated and divided into quarters (Figure 4). During the years evaluated, the burned area ranged from 10,140 km\({}^{2}\) to 29,336 km\({}^{2}\) (Table S2). The most burned areas occurred in 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2010; the largest burned areas identified in the time series corresponded to 2005 (109,341.10 km\({}^{2}\)), 2009 (109,422.00 km\({}^{2}\)), and 2010 (51,687.36 km\({}^{2}\)). The S, SE, and E regions exhibited higher fire occurrences than the other regions. In addition, Q3 (critical burn point) had higher fire occurrences, as compared with the other quarters. The fire foci from 2001 to 2019 were concentrated in an area of 1,413,402 km\({}^{2}\), which corresponds to 23.78% of the entire Amazon Basin. Of this, 310,363.86 km\({}^{2}\) exists in ILs (Table S3), which corresponds to 17.16% of the total IL area in the Amazon Basin (1,807,639.74 km\({}^{2}\)). Meanwhile, CUs had a total burned area of 59,962.55 km\({}^{2}\) (Table S4), accounting for 5.93% of their total area (1,010,569.55 km\({}^{2}\)).