Is cerrado a savanna?

Cerrado is the largest savanna region in South America and biologically the richest savanna in all the world.

What is a cerrado in Brazil?

The Cerrado is highlighted below in green. Covering 2 million km 2, or 21% of the country's territory, the Cerrado is the second largest vegetation type in Brazil after the Amazon. The area is equivalent to the size of England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined.

Is the Cerrado a water tank?

“The Cerrado is like the water tank of Brazil. This is impacting the fluvial regime of rivers, of important rivers,” said Britaldo Soares-Filho, professor of environmental modelling at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. “The Cerrado is a biodiversity hotspot and is under a lot of pressure.”

How many species of plants are in the Cerrado?

It has over 10,000 species of plants, of which 45% are exclusive to the Cerrado, and it stretches across nearly 500 million acres of Brazil — an area nearly three times the size of Texas. The Cerrado also feeds three of the major water basins in South America: the Amazon, Paraguay and São Francisco Rivers.