Half a Century of the Forest Code and its Consequences in Areas of Permanent Preservation in the Hyper-Saline Estuary in the Brazilian Semiarid

Abstract

The objective of this article is to evaluate the spatial distribution and quantify the Permanent Preservation Areas in the outfall estuarine of the Apodi-Mossoró River, in Rio Grande do Norte (Northeastern Brazil), for the years 1965 and 2012 according to the environmental legislation. In this way, it was possible to compare projected zoning changes on land use/landcover, as well as implications for wetlands. The methodology involved the reconstruction of scenarios based on norms and evaluation of thematic maps generated from remote sensing products. Digital Image Processing techniques were used to map land use/land cover categories and to identify the boundaries of protected areas in each period. The largest change observed indicates loss of 1,907.09 ha of flooded areas of the fluvial-marine plain, almost totally occupied by salt evaporation tanks. In 1965, three categories of PPA were observed, accounting for 455.17 ha, but for law limitations only 83.45 ha were protected. In relation to 2012, six categories of PPA were detected, totaling 1,051.96 ha, as a consequence of the expansion of protective areas, but the previously consolidated areas reduced to 787.57 ha the size of protected areas in the last period. The brazilian estuarine environment is remarked by the lack of more specific legislation that best protects wetlands. Permanent Preservation Areas are unsufficient to guarantee environmental quality of the coastal region, especially in study area, where there´s flood risks and degraded ecosystems.

Keywords

• Environmental legislation
• APP
• Mangrove
• Coverage and Land Use
• Wetlands