Abstract
Urban green areas are the coverage type that comes closest to the natural landscape. In this paper we aimed to evaluate three decades of spatio-temporal dynamic of green areas in the city of Natal and its administrative zones to answer how much green and urban coverage areas have changed, how much green area index has varied and when were such changes stronger. A remote sensing technique and a computer graphic program were used to convert, classify and extract information from Landsat satellite images from 1984, 1993, 2005 and 2015. Natal has lost 2/3 of its dense vegetation in the last three decades (currently ranging from 3% to 12 % of its administrative zone areas). The green area index of the city was reduced from 107 m² to 18 m² of green area per inhabitant. However, major administrative zones had even lower indices than 18 m² of green area per inhabitant. Changes in the coverage of vegetation and the green area index were stronger between 1984 and 1993. The results found out here are a first step to support decisions of stakeholders about land use and occupation in the city of Natal.
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