Anuário do Instituto de Geociências (Aug 2018)

Plant Structure Analysis of Cerrado Fragments by Remote Sensing

  • César Claudio Cáceres Encina,
  • Maria Rita Marques,
  • Marco Antonio Diodato,
  • Jaíza Santos Motta,
  • Raquel de Faria Godoi,
  • José Renato Silva de Oliveira,
  • Roberto Macedo Gamarra,
  • Fabricio Bau Dalmas,
  • Antonio Conceição Paranhos Filho

DOI
https://doi.org/10.11137/2018_2_585_597
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 41, no. 2
pp. 585 – 597

Abstract

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With the development of society to preserve the environment becomes essential. Biodiversity is a resource that has strategic value and is related to the territorial heterogeneity. The loss and fragmentation of natural habitats is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity resulting biotic and abiotic changes in the remaining. The Cerrado occupied 23% of the Brazilian territory in the plains of the central plateau. Estimates indicates that the Cerrado will be completely destroyed in 2030. The environmental heterogeneity contributes to the high species richness and from the environmental services offering stands out the protection of water resources. This study aims to analyze the structural vegetation of 18 Cerrado fragments by multi-temporal composite applied to Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and Normalized Difference Water Index. Both indices were calculated using Landsat images 1985-2015 and a falsecolor composite was then generated to detect changes in vegetation cover. It was possible to detect changes in vegetation cover and moisture over time. The false-color multi-temporal combination proved to be a quick and easy way to locate the places where there have been changes in vegetation cover.

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