Landscape Metrics for Characterization of Occupation Dynamics in Amazonia

Authors

  • Jorge Luis Gavina PEREIRA INPE
  • Getulio Teixeira BATISTA Universidade de Taubaté – Departamento de Ciências Agrárias
  • Marcelo Cordeiro THALÊS INPE
  • Dar A. ROBERTS University of California at Santa Barbara - Department of Geography
  • Adriano VENTURIERI Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária - Centro de Pesquisas Agropecuária do Trópico Úmido

Abstract

Land use and land cover change in the tropics has severe impact on the environment. Landscape metrics had been used for land use and land cover change characterization. This work had the objective of characterizing the evolution of the landscape of an area of the center-eastern of the State of Pará, from 1973 to 1997, based on landscape metrics calculated by using a specific software. A drastic decrease of the forest area was observed, accompanied by a significant increase of the pasture areas. The number of patches of the study area increased, while the medium size of the patches of the landscape decreased. The edge density also presented a great increase. The average distance between nearest neighbors did not vary much for the forest class along the years, however, it was observed a decrease in the average distance between pasture patches. Only 5% of the forest area were located over 500 m far from a border, in 1997, what indicates an intense degradation of the forest in the studied area. Key words: Landscape Ecology, Land Use and Land Cover Change, Amazonia, Remote Sensing.

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Published

2008-10-21

Issue

v. 26, n. 1 (2001)

Section

Article

License

The authors maintain the copyright and grant GEOGRAFIA the right of first publication, with the articles simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons BY 4.0 License, which allows sharing and adapting the articles for any purpose, as long as appropriate credits and provisions of image rights, privacy or moral rights. Other legal attributions can be accessed at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.en.

 

Geography, Rio Claro, SP, Brazil - eISSN 1983-8700 is licensed under the Creative Commons BY 4.0 License.