Análise espaço-temporal da cobertura vegetal na Área de Proteção Ambiental (APA) do Cariri-PB

Abstract

The dynamic behavior of the vegetation over time can be spatialised with the help of Geoprocessing tools and Remote Sensing techniques anchored to the use of images captured by remote sensors, which enables the multi-temporal analysis of vegetation and its quantification. This study aimed to analyze the spatial dynamics of the vegetation present in Cariri’s E.P.A., in Paraíba – In the hiatus of 24 years. For this purpose, we used multitemporal satellite images captured by the Thematic Mapper sensors (June 18th, 1990 and April 22nd, 2010), Enhanced Thematic Mapper (July 13th, 2002) and Operational Land Imager (June 20th 2014) Landsat satellite linked to the Landsat series 5, 7 and 8, respectively. The images were processed according to the steps of the Digital Image Processing (D.I.P.). The method of supervised classification with the algorithm Maximum Likelihood (MAXVER) allowed us to spatialise the vegetation dynamics in the period analyzed (1990-2014).The main results showed that in 1990 the dense vegetation icicles 31,4Km² (19.92%) of the Environment Protection Area (E. P. A.), and we registered in the following mapping (2002), a significant reduction of the areas covered by this class: 8,35Km² (5.3 %). In 2010, after the transformation of the area into a Conservation Unit, it was recorded a decrease of the exposed soil class (8.9%) and an increase in dense Caatinga classes (17.3%) and semidense (34.11%). In 2014 there was a reduction of dense Caatinga classes (7.14%) and open Caatinga classes (27.28%), while the areas with bare soil increased with 47,91Km² (30.39%). We conclude that the vegetation of the E.P.A. was reduced over the reporting period and the vegetation of the Caatinga area has significant connexions with the physical factors (rainfall and relief) which influence the spatial and temporal distribution of vegetation.