Abstract
Diagnosis of fragmentation and landscape sustainability conditions are essential to environmental planning and sustainable management of natural resources. Land use spatial patterns and landscape structural indexes (landscape metrics, Urbanity Index— UI, and Landscape Vulnerability Index—LVI) have been proposed to assess biodiversity conservation and ecological sustainability, provided by impact of land use at Middle Mogi Guaçu watershed and its seventeen municipalities, in 2009. Land use typologies and structural indexes values were obtained based on screen digitizing of LandSat-5 imagery, for 2009. Cluster analysis and Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variance were used to test the null hypothesis of equal degrees of fragmentation and sustainability conditions among municipalities in 2009, respectively. Land use spatial pattern showed a predominantly human occupation for watershed and its municipalities, with agricultural use as the main pressure factor. Municipalities were aggregated into three clusters related to forest fragmentation: one categorized by fifteen municipalities; the second cluster (municipality of Luiz Antônio) showing the best condition, and the third group (municipality of Araraquara) with extreme fragmentation condition. Landscape metrics related with shape, size, and core areas fragments intensify edge effects, and increase habitat isolation. The watershed showed a low naturalness and an intermediate degree of vulnerability. Ecological sustainability was different among municipalities (α = 0.05, F = 32.65 and p = 0.002), with two municipalities (Analandia and Luiz Antônio) presenting the best conditions. The most committed condition was observed, in municipalities of Rincão and Guatapara. For conservation policies to be effective must focus on the creation of ecological corridors around legally protected areas, besides creation of new legal reserves, with purpose to improve biodiversity conservation and ecological sustainability of Middle Mogi Guaçu watershed and its municipalities.
Highlights
Land use related activities, mainly to meet demands for natural resources, have resulted in environmental degradation [1]
We identified scenarios of biodiversity conservation and ecological sustainability for the Middle Mogi Guaçu watershed and its municipalities, in 2009, based on land use spatial pattern, and landscape structural indexes, with the goal to environmental planning and sustainable management of natural resources
We identified four classes of land use for the Middle Mogi Guaçu watershed in 2009: 1) natural; 2) anthropogenic agriculture; 3) anthropogenic non-agricultural; and 4) aquatic ecosystem (Figure 2)
Summary
Mainly to meet demands for natural resources, have resulted in environmental degradation [1]. Factors impacting land use are local and/or regional development actions as well as ecological and structural characteristics of landscape. Decisions related to land use involve trade-offs between meeting human needs and ecosystem health, depending on social values [2]. Landscape sustainability is a process of improving dynamic relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being in a changing landscape [3] and is highly dependent on land use dynamics [4]. The geotechnology is an effective technique for sustainable use planning [5], fragmentation diagnosis [6] [7], and identification of scenarios for biodiversity conservation, based on landscape condition of remaining natural vegetation [8]. Landscape metrics [9] [10] and ecological sustainability indexes [11]-[14] can be used in analysis of landscape management spatial patterns
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