Trends of land use and land cover change in the upper-middle Mira basin in Ecuador

Abstract

The use of remote sensing and information on social factors specific to each population allows the monitoring of natural resource use. The main objective of this study is to determine the change and future projection of land use and land cover and, at the same time, to understand, from the perspective of the main stakeholders, the driving and underlying factors of these changes in the middle-upper Mira river basin. For this purpose, multispectral, Landsat, and Sentinel images from 1996, 2007, and 2018 have been used and pre-processed and treated. Subsequently, a forecast of land cover and land use changes from 2018-2030 has been made using TerrSet software. The drivers and underlying factors have been identified using the Delphi method. The results show that forests and pastures presented a sustained decrease, while cropland and urban areas increased between 1996-2018 and 2018-2030. These changes are related to urban, agricultural, livestock, mining, and forest industry growth, which are generally driven by population growth, market demand, changing consumption patterns, road expansion, and a lack of environmental policies.