Spatiotemporal Patterns and Socioeconomic Contexts of Vegetative Cover in Altamira City, Brazil

Rinku Roy Chowdhury,Scott Hetrick,Emilio Moran,Eduardo Brondizio

doi:10.3390/land2040774

Abstract

Ecosystem services provided by urban vegetation can ameliorate problems common to urban environments while improving the quality of life of urban residents. Much research in urban ecology has analyzed urban environmental dynamics in the global north; rapidly urbanizing areas in the global south have not received commensurate attention. The land cover dynamics of mid-sized cities in the global south remain under-explored in particular. In this article, we investigate the spatial patterns and socioeconomic contexts of urban vegetation in Altamira, Brazil, a mid-sized but rapidly expanding city in the Amazon. Using time series remotely sensed imagery, we profile changes in urban land cover, and link them to socioeconomic indicators at the census sector (tract) level. While studies of urban environmental justice in the global north largely report that greener urban landscapes prevail in affluent neighborhoods, our analysis reveals significantly lower vegetative cover in higher-income sectors of Altamira. Vegetative cover is also significantly lower in sectors with higher housing density, time since urbanization and better infrastructure, and appears linked to housing tenure. Studies of vegetative outcomes in similar urban environments should investigate socioeconomic and demographic contexts while also integrating recent infrastructure development and density-dependent growth patterns.

Highlights

Urbanization processes have dramatic impacts on environmental change globally, driving transformations to local and regional land cover, hydrologic regimes and nutrient flows [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Our research addresses three main questions about urbanization and vegetative patterns in Altamira: the current distribution of urban vegetation, the spatiotemporal patterns of urban development of the city, and the relationship of urban vegetation to socioeconomic contexts
To address the research questions outlined in the introduction of this paper, we conducted exploratory statistical analyses comparing Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values and classified land cover data to socio-economic-demographic indicators and urban expansion over time

Summary

Introduction

Urbanization processes have dramatic impacts on environmental change globally, driving transformations to local and regional land cover, hydrologic regimes and nutrient flows [1,2,3,4,5,6]. While studies of land-use and-cover change (LUCC) have often focused on rural areas, research is increasingly turning to ecological and land cover dynamics within cities, with attention to vegetative cover therein. Rapidly urbanizing areas in the global south represent an increasingly larger share of world population, yet limited attention has been paid to land cover dynamics in such areas [7]. As the world continues to urbanize, there is a pressing need to analyze emerging patterns of urban vegetative cover and understand their social contexts, including potential environmental inequities. Methodological developments are needed to spatially and temporally connect extant land cover and socioeconomic variables to reveal the patterns, trajectories and drivers of urban vegetative change. Such research is beginning to emerge for urban areas in the global north [11,12,13] but remains lacking for the global south

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