Fragmentação da paisagem na região metropolitana de Aracaju-SE, Brasil

Abstract

The present study aims to analyze the landscape fragmentation and its temporal evolutionconsidering an interval of 25 years (1990 and 2015), for themetropolitan regionof Aracaju, Sergipe,Brazil. The satellite images LANDSAT 5 and 8were used as materials. The images were classified using supervised method, according toseven land use/landcover classes, which are Forest, Mangrove, Sand-dune, Agriculture and/or Pasture, Bare Soil, Urban Area and Water Bodies. The classification validation was assessedby the Confusion Matrix and Kappa index.From this classification,sevenlandscapemetricswere calculated as fragment level(class area, percentage of landscape, number of patches, patch density, mean area of fragments, average proximity index and nearest neighbor distance). The results indicate that since 1990 the studyarea is under a landscape transformation processes, and reveals a high fragmentation degree considering the natural vegetation areas (Forest, Mangrove and Sand-dune)that have been replaced by anthropogenic features, such as those related to the urban use and grazing activities