Deforestation in the peruvian Amazon: indexes of Land Cover/Land Use (LC/LU) changes based on GIS

Abstract

The forests of the Peruvian Amazon have undergone important transformations since the middle of the last century. This work evaluated the changes of Land Cover/Land Use (LC/LU) in the province of Rodríguez de Mendoza (Peruvian Amazon), through the methods of supervised classification of maximum probability and interdependent visual interpretation of images of the Landsat satellite, between the 1987–2001 and 2001–2016. Cross-tabulation matrices were constructed and annual change rates were calculated. The results show an accumulated loss of 918,59 km2 of forest cover. The intensity of LC/LU and the deforestation rate were higher in the second period of analysis. It was evidenced that the high concentrations of loss of forest cover are close to the road and water network. The main causes of the loss of forests were the livestock activity and the migratory agricultural expansion to the small farm, favored by the accessibility of the transport infrastructures.