Rio Doce State Park buffer zone: forest fragmentation and land use dynamics

Abstract

The investigation of land use changes by anthropic processes, spatially and temporally, is a fundamental tool to establish correlations between landscape patterns and processes and management of the buffer zone of Conservation Units. This study aimed to analyze the forest fragmentation and land use dynamics in the buffer zone of the Rio Doce State Park (PERD), located in Minas Gerais, Brazil, for the year 2015. Its buffer zone was delimited to a radius of 10 km, covering a total area of 128.893,36 ha. Land use classification was based on Landsat 8 image, orbit 217, point 73 and 74, and two types of ecosystems were identified: natural and anthropic. In the thematic mapping, the pressure of the anthropic use over the natural was notified, as well as the high number of forest fragments, which is a negative impact on the resilience required for the conservation of biodiversity and the local Atlantic forest. The fragments have different shapes and sizes and are distributed throughout the buffer zone of the PERD. There is a need to adopt conservation strategies, such as environmental education, reforestation techniques, recovery of degraded areas and ecological corridors. Even with a worrying current scenario, this finding makes it possible to establish an optimistic point for biodiversity conservation, associated with a tendency to reduce the forces of direct changes on natural systems.