Tropical ecosystems play an important role in the environment. They provide multiple ecosystem services, such as carbon capture and sequestration, food supply, and climate regulation. Studying land use and land cover change makes it possible to understand the land’s alterations associated with deforestation, degradation, erosion, soil desertification, and biodiversity loss. The objective of this study is to evaluate the different approaches to land use and land cover research in tropical forests based on the evolutionary and qualitative analysis of the last 44 years of scientific production. The data were collected using the Scopus database and was based on the PRISMA methodology’s four phases: (i) identification, (ii) screening, (iii) eligibility, and (iv) included. The results showed a significant increase in the study of land use and land cover consolidated in 4557 articles, with contributions from 74 countries, revealing 14 themes and seven lines of research. Core research areas such as biodiversity, land use, and conservation exist due to the ongoing interest in the value of tropical forests and their response to climate change. The present research allowed us to consider future study topics such as the relationship between sustainable development goals and land use and cover in tropical forests, as well as the evaluation of the environmental impact of economic activities in forests.

The Amazon is home to a vast biodiversity and plays a crucial role in the maintenance and conservation of the planet. The progress of anthropogenic activities in the region is one of the drivers of land cover change. Studying these changes through remote sensing enables the monitoring of degradation and deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Using bibliometric tools this study analyses the different remote sensing approaches for land use and land cover monitoring in the Amazon. The methodology includes 1) data search and collection, 2) tool selection and data processing, and 3) data and trend analysis. The results indicate that studies on forest loss and biodiversity are trending in the field. Emerging topics focus on new tools for environmental impact assessment and evaluating new computational technologies for satellite data management.