TYPOLOGIES OF LAND USE AND LAND COVER ASSOCIATED WITH CASES OF CUTANEOUS LEISHMANIASIS IN A METROPOLITAN REGION IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON

Abstract

Characterizing the probable site of infection of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) in face of anthropic changes in the Amazon makes it possible to understand the distribution of this disease in order to adopt control measures. The objective of this study is to identify landscape typologies resulting from changes in land use and land cover in the Metropolitan Region of Santarém regarding the occurrence of CL cases in 2012 and 2014. Landscape typologies were developed from TerraClass project data using regular 1 km² cells. Landscape presence and dominance metrics were used to generate cells with a single class and cells with more than one class, called mosaics. For cases of leishmaniasis, the metric was the presence of the disease. Association analyses were extracted from a 2x2 contingency table. The primary forest typology (PP04) had the highest number of cells in both years analyzed. However, changes in land use and land cover were evidenced by the growth in the number of cells with mosaics of agriculture (PP11 and PP12), urbanized areas (PP03 and PP10), and pastures (PP13). The presence of at least one case of CL in each year occurred in ten typologies, particularly in compositions with urbanized areas, pastures, and secondary vegetation. Typologies with the agriculture class, although the number of cells increased, did not follow the same growth logic regarding the presence of the disease. This study makes it possible to identify and characterize the places where CL occurs and provides further information for health surveillance agencies