Monitoring of the forest evolution in remnants of the atlantic forest biome using rapideye imagery

Abstract

This study aimed towards analyzing the space-Time evolution of the forest covering of the Atlantic Forest biome in extremely high priority area for the preservation of biodiversity located in the central region of Rio Grande do Sul, between the years of 2011 and 2013. The mapping of land use and land cover was accomplished by means of the Bhattacharya supervised assortment, utilizing RapidEye/REIS imagery in the years of 2011 and 2013, the kappa coefficient was used to analyze the quality of the classification. The spatialization of the forest dinamics was accomplished by identifying the upkeep, expansion and deforestation areas during the analysis period. For the years 2011 and 2013 a Kappa index of 0.88 and 0.87 was obtained, respectively. The agriculture presented the highest evolution percentage, presenting an 11.89% increase, whereas the forest coverage presented a 8.21% decrease. The evolutionary analysis of the forest coverage demonstrated that the forest deforestation was of 6.31% and the expansion of native forests was of 4.30%. The spatial analysis presented high potential on identifying alteration spots of the Atlantic Forest Bioma's natural vegetation in large scale. Therefore, this tool can be used along with the policies of preservation of the natural ecosystems.