Landscape Fragmentation in the Metropolitan Region of Aracaju-SE, Brazil
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Abstract
The present study aims to analyze the landscape fragmentation and its temporal evolution considering an interval of 25 years (1990 and 2015), for the metropolitan region of Aracaju, Sergipe, Brazil. The satellite images LANDSAT 5 and 8 were used as materials. The images were classified using supervised method, according to seven land use/land cover classes, which are Forest, Mangrove, Sand-dune, Agriculture and/or Pasture, Bare Soil, Urban Area and Water Bodies. The classification validation was assessed by the Confusion Matrix and Kappa index. From this classification, seven landscape metrics were calculated as fragment level (class area, percentage of landscape, number of patches, patch density, mean area of fragments, average proximity index and nearest neighbor distance). The results indicate that since 1990 the study area is under a landscape transformation processes, and reveals a high fragmentation degree considering the natural vegetation areas (Forest, Mangrove and Sand-dune) that have been replaced by anthropogenic features, such as those related to the urban use and grazing activities.
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