USE AND LAND COVER CHANGES IN GUALAXO DO NORTE – MG RIVER BASIN: 2008 TO 2018

Abstract

Mapping the change of the land use and of the land cover is an essential tool for territory analysis.  This paper  analyzed the changes in the land use and in  the land cover in the Gualaxo do Norte river basin in Minas Gerais (Brazil), aiming to identify and to analyze the main land use and land cover classes in the past decade (2008-2018) and highlighting the changes brought on by the Fundão mining dam rupture, as well as the land use and land cover organization patterns in the basin. Satellite image classification was performed for the years 2008, 2015 and 2018, through object-oriented supervised classification using the Nearest Neighbor algorithm, with the parameters such as shape, size and compacity. Thereby eight main land use and land cover classes were found in the 10 years analyzed,  which have gone through major or minor changes. We have also found that the river basin displays three great environments, the first predominantly represented by the mining activities, in the upper course; the second represented by the silviculture and the forest formation in the middle course and the third typically made of represented by grassland in many areas of pastures in the lower course.