Abstract
Urban forests offer city residents a better quality of life. They also act as barrier and filter to pollutants resulting from human activities. Mapping the distribution of forests in urban areas is therefore important for good urban planning. Currently, high resolution images are considered useful tools to quantify forested urban areas for large scale urban development. The objective of this work was to evaluate multi-temporal urban forest area changes over different land-use classes, using available high-resolution images obtained from different satellites. The municipality of Araucaria (Paraná State) was chosen as study area because it is a large industrial zone of southern Brazil. The effects on the forests within this municipality caused by the increase in human activities between 2005 and 2012 were determined using high resolution images (5m). We recorded a reduction of 22.8% in the forests surrounding urban areas of the municipality, as a result of deforestation of 791ha and plantation of only 251ha. The utility, commercial and residential zones which are more crowded the areas of highest population density were those which showed the greatest loss of tree cover. Object-based classification accuracy using images from different satellites was sufficient to quantify the evolution of tree-cover over the studied period.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.