Land use and land cover mapping and identification of misuse in the permanent preservation areas in the Tailândia Municipality - PA

Abstract

The objective of this study is to expand the mapping of land use and land cover, as well as of the permanent preservation areas (PPAs), and identify land misuse areas in the PPAs in the Tailândia municipality in the state of Pará, which is part of the Amazon biome. Remote sensing techniques and geographic information systems (GIS) were used to achieve these goals. Mapping and classification for the year 2012 were made by visual interpretation of images obtained from the RapidEye satellite, which has a 5 m spatial resolution. In this work, we identified nine classes of land use and land cover. From the hydrography vectors it was possible to determinate the Permanent Preservation Areas of the bodies of water according to the environmental legislation. Analysis of misuse in the PPAs was made by crossing-checking the land use and land cover data with that of the PPAs. The results show that 53 % of the municipality (2,347.64 km²) is occupied by human activities. Livestock farming is the activity that has most increased the use of area (30 %), followed by altered vegetation (14.6 %) and palm oil (7.2 %). The PPAs have a high percentage of misuse (47.12 %), with livestock being the largest contributor, occupying 26.65 % of the PPAs, followed by altered vegetation (12.64 %) and palm oil (4.29 %). Therefore, the main objective in Tailândia is to reconcile economic activity with sustainable development. It is important to emphasize the partnerships between the government, research institutions, regulatory agencies, states departments and local communities, else it would be impossible to monitor or control an area as vast as the Amazon.