Study of Ecosystem Degradation Dynamics in the Peruvian Highlands: Landsat Time-Series Trend Analysis (1985–2022) with ARVI for Different Vegetation Cover Types

Abstract

The high-Andean vegetation ecosystems of the Bombón Plateau in Peru face increasing degradation due to aggressive anthropogenic land use and the climate change scenario. The lack of historical degradation evolution information makes implementing adaptive monitoring plans in these vulnerable ecosystems difficult. Remote sensor technology emerges as a fundamental resource to fill this gap. The objective of this article was to analyze the degradation of vegetation in the Bombón Plateau over almost four decades (1985–2022), using high spatiotemporal resolution data from the Landsat 5, 7, and 8 sensors. The methodology considers: (i) the use of the atmosphere resistant vegetation index (ARVI), (ii) the implementation of non-parametric Mann–Kendall trend analysis per pixel, and (iii) the affected vegetation covers were determined by supervised classification. This article’s results show that approximately 13.4% of the total vegetation cover was degraded. According to vegetation cover types, bulrush was degraded by 21%, tall grass by 18%, cattails by 16%, wetlands by 14%, and puna grass by 13%. The Spearman correlation (p < 0.01) determined that degraded covers are replaced by puna grass and change factors linked with human activities. Finally, this article concludes that part of the vegetation degradation is related to anthropogenic activities such as agriculture, overgrazing, urbanization, and mining. However, the possibility that environmental factors have influenced these events is recognized.