Dynamics of land use change in the Guangras sector of Sangay National Park, Ecuador

Abstract

Land use change studies are very important tools because they evaluate the speed of deforestation/reforestation, determine its geographic extension and comprehend the social and economic causes of the changes at global, regional and local scales. The objective of this work was to analyze land use changes in the Guangras sector, in an area of 1 609.48 ha focused on to the recovery of ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation in the southern zone of the eastern Andean Cordillera within Sangay National Park. A spatio-temporal study was carried out through satellite images, where Landsat images were pre-processed and classified using ArcGis 10.1 software to determine the change in land use and the analysis of the transition matrix. As a result of this geospatial study, five land uses were identified: moorland, agricultural crops, forest, grassland and water bodies, as well as a change dynamic from 1991 to 2016, in relation to the forest, a decrease of 2.47 %, of moorland 0.76 %, of water bodies 0.28 %, while grassland increased by 3.07 %, and agricultural crops by 1.88 %.

Keywords

• imágenes satelitales, cobertura vegetal, estudio espacio-temporal, degradación, fragmentación