Assessing the spatio-temporal impacts of land-use change in a primary forest of Ecuador
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17268/agroind.sci.2024.03.04Keywords:
Deforestation, NDVI analysis, land use change, vegetation dynamicsAbstract
This investigation focused on identifying deforested areas, tracking land use changes, and performing temporal analysis through thematic mapping in La Concordia canton, located in northwestern Ecuador. Utilizing NDVI analysis of Sentinel-2 L2A images from 2019, 2022, and 2023, the study assessed vegetation health and cover. NDVI values were categorized into land cover classes to calculate deforestation rates. The analysis reveals significant changes in La Concordia's vegetation, characterized by a decline in healthy vegetation and an increase in bare soil areas from 2019 to 2023, alongside a concerning deforestation rate of -3.89% over the same period. These findings underscore the urgent need for sustainable land management practices to address the impacts of agricultural expansion and intensification on the region’s ecosystem.
References
Álvarez, D. M., & Poveda, G. (2022). Spatiotemporal dynamics of NDVI, soil moisture and ENSO in tropical South America. Remote Sensing, 14(11), 2521. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14112521
Anzules-Toala, V., Pazmiño-Bonilla, E., Alvarado-Huamán, L., Borjas-Ventura, R., Castro-Cepero, V., & Julca-Otiniano, A. (2022). Control of cacao (Theobroma cacao) diseases in Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas, Ecuador. Agronomía Mesoamericana, 33(1). https://dx.doi.org/10.15517/am.v33i1.45939
Baeza, S., & Paruelo, J. M. (2020). Land use/land cover change (2000–2014) in the Rio de la Plata Grasslands: An analysis based on MODIS NDVI time series. Remote Sensing, 12(3), 381. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12030381
Calderón, A., Guerrero, J, & Calderón G. (2020). environmental impact of sustainable housing in rural area of pilot plan, Santo Domingo de los T'sachilas, Ecuador. International Journal of Life Sciences, 4(3), 31-40, https://dx.doi.org/10.29332/ijls.v4n3.47
Calvas, B., Castro, L. M., Kindu, M., Bingham, L., Pintado, K., Torres Celi, J., Knoke, T., & Cueva-Ortiz, J. (2024). Large differences between observed and expected Ecuadorian deforestation from 2001 to 2009: a counterfactual simulation approach. Regional Environmental Change, 24(2). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-024-02253-0
Céspedes, J., Sylvester, J. M., Pérez-Marulanda, L., Paz-Garcia, P., Reymondin, L., Khodadadi, M., Tello, J. J., & Castro-Nunez, A. (2023). Has global deforestation accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic? Journal of Forestry Research, 34(4), 1153–1165. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-022-01561-7
Fischer, R., Tamayo Cordero, F., Ojeda Luna, T., Ferrer Velasco, R., DeDecker, M., Torres, B., Giessen, L., & Günter, S. (2021). Interplay of governance elements and their effects on deforestation in tropical landscapes: Quantitative insights from Ecuador. World Development, 148(105665), 105665. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105665
Franco-Solís, A., & Montanía, C. V. (2021). Dynamics of deforestation worldwide: A structural decomposition analysis of agricultural land use in South America. Land Use Policy, 109(105619), 105619. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105619
Giljum, S., Maus, V., Kuschnig, N., Luckeneder, S., Tost, M., Sonter, L. J., & Bebbington, A. J. (2022). A pantropical assessment of deforestation caused by industrial mining. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119(38). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2118273119
Gupta, N., Mathew, A., & Khandelwal, S. (2020). Spatio-temporal impact assessment of land use / land cover (LU-LC) change on land surface temperatures over Jaipur city in India. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 12(3), 283–299. https://doi.org/10.1080/19463138.2020.1727908
Haro-Carrión, X., Waylen, P., & Southworth, J. (2021). Spatiotemporal changes in vegetation greenness across continental Ecuador: a Pacific-Andean-Amazonian gradient, 1982–2010. Journal of Land Use Science, 16(1), 18–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/1747423x.2020.1866705
Heredia, M., Cayambe, J., Schorsch, C., Toulkeridis, T., Barreto, D., Poma, P., & Villegas, G. (2021). Multitemporal analysis as a non-invasive technology indicates a rapid change in land use in the Amazon: The case of the ITT Oil Block. Environments, 8(12), 139. https://doi.org/10.3390/environments8120139
Hernández, M., & Cima, M. (2023). Índice de vegetación de diferencia normalizada (NDVI): estudio de la deforestación en el municipio de Bacalar, Quintana Roo, México. In B. C. Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Quintana Roo (Ed). Experiencias y saberes geográficos: una reflexión desde lo local (pp. 65-86).
Herrera, E., Stoeth, A., Krakauer, N. Y., & Devineni, N. (2021). Quantifying vegetation response to environmental changes on the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Environmental research communications, 3(6). https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7620/ac0bd1
Huang, S., Tang, L., Hupy, J. P., Wang, Y., & Shao, G. (2021). A commentary review on the use of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in the era of popular remote sensing. Journal of Forestry Research, 32(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-020-01155-1
Jiang, L., Liu, Y., Wu, S., & Yang, C. (2021). Analyzing ecological environment change and associated driving factors in China based on NDVI time series data. Ecological Indicators, 129(107933), 107933. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.107933
Kleemann, J., Zamora, C., Villacis-Chiluisa, A. B., Cuenca, P., Koo, H., Noh, J. K., Fürst, C., & Thiel, M. (2022). Deforestation in continental Ecuador with a focus on protected areas. Land, 11(2), 268. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11020268
Leon, M., Cornejo, G., Calderón, M., González-Carrión, E., & Florez, H. (2022). Effect of deforestation on climate change: A co-integration and causality approach with time series. Sustainability, 14(18), 11303. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141811303
Li, P., Wang, J., Liu, M., Xue, Z., Bagherzadeh, A., & Liu, M. (2021). Spatio-temporal variation characteristics of NDVI and its response to climate on the Loess Plateau from 1985 to 2015. Catena, 203(105331), 105331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2021.105331
Llerena, S., Tarko, A., Kurbatova, A., & Kozhevnikova, P. (2019). Assessment of carbon dynamics in Ecuadorian forests through the Mathematical Spatial Model of Global Carbon Cycle and the Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI). E3S Web of Conferences, 96, 02002. https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/20199602002
López, S. (2022). Deforestation, forest degradation, and land use dynamics in the Northeastern Ecuadorian Amazon. Applied Geography (Sevenoaks, England), 145(102749), 102749. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2022.102749
López-Carr, D. (2021). A review of small farmer land use and deforestation in tropical forest frontiers: Implications for conservation and sustainable livelihoods. Land, 10(11), 1113. https://doi.org/10.3390/land10111113
MAE. Ministerio del Ambiente. Linea Base de deforestación del Ecuador Continental. MAE. Pág. 15.
Mohebalian, P. M., Lopez, L. N., Tischner, A. B., & Aguilar, F. X. (2022). Deforestation in South America’s tri-national Paraná Atlantic Forest: Trends and associational factors. Forest Policy and Economics, 137(102697), 102697. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102697
Ochoa-Brito, J. I., Ghosh, A., & Hijmans, R. J. (2023). Cropland expansion in Ecuador between 2000 and 2016. PloS One, 18(9), e0291753. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291753
Ojeda, T., Eguiguren, P., Günter, S., Torres, B., & Dieter, M. (2020). What drives household deforestation decisions? Insights from the Ecuadorian lowland rainforests. Forests, 11(11), 1131. https://doi.org/10.3390/f11111131
Puyravaud, J. (2002). Standardizing the calculation of the annual rate of deforestation. Forest Ecology and Management, 6. https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/2160/Puyravaud2.pdf
Recuero, L., Maila, L., Cicuéndez, V., Sáenz, C., Litago, J., Tornos, L., Merino-de-Miguel, S., & Palacios-Orueta, A. (2023). Mapping cropland intensification in Ecuador through spectral analysis of MODIS NDVI time series. Agronomy (Basel, Switzerland), 13(9), 2329. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13092329
Reyna, L., Lasota, J., Reyna-Bowen, L., Vera-Montenegro, L., Vega-Ponce, E. C., Izaguirre-Mayoral, M. L., & Błońska, E. (2023). A new approach to monitor soil microbial driven C/N ratio in temperate evergreen coniferous forests managed via Sentinel-2 spectral imagery. Land, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.3390/land12020284
Rivas, C. A., Guerrero-Casado, J., & Navarro-Cerillo, R. M. (2021). Deforestation and fragmentation trends of seasonal dry tropical forest in Ecuador: impact on conservation. Forest Ecosystems, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40663-021-00329-5
Rivas, C. A., Guerrero-Casado, J., & Navarro-Cerrillo, R. M. (2024). Functional connectivity across dominant forest ecosystems in Ecuador: A major challenge for a country with a high deforestation rate. Journal for Nature Conservation, 78(126549), 126549. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2023.126549
Villarreal-Veloz, J., Zapata-Ríos, X., Uvidia-Zambrano, K., & Borja-Escobar, C. (2023). Spatio-temporal description of the NDVI (MODIS) of the Ecuadorian tussock grasses and its link with the hydrometeorological variables and global climatic indices. Sustainability, 15(15), 11562. https://doi.org/10.3390/su151511562
Xu, Y., Yang, Y., Chen, X., & Liu, Y. (2022). Bibliometric analysis of global NDVI research trends from 1985 to 2021. Remote Sensing, 14(16), 3967. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14163967
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Los autores conservan sus derechos de autor sin restricciones.
