A arborização das áreas públicas dos bairros de Fortaleza-Ceará é influenciada pelas condições socioeconômicas da população?

Abstract

Arborization, in the urban environment, plays several roles in the ecosystems of cities, such as reducing air, visual and noise pollution; increased comfort and environmental quality and an aesthetic improvement. Considering the need to know better the flora that covers the urban space, the study had as objective to carry out the qualitative-quantitative inventory of trees and shrubs of public areas of six districts of the city of Fortaleza-CE, Northeast of Brazil. In a universe of 119 neighborhoods, were selected: Jardim Iracema, Praia de Iracema, João XXIII, Itaoca, Jardim Cearense and Curió. In the field, the total sampling of the public areas of the selected neighborhoods with georeferencing of the individuals found was the method used for data collection. It was verified that the shrub-tree flora of the selected districts is constituted by a total of 103 species, belonging to 37 families. In total, 3971 individuals were registered, being 89.12% of exotic species and 10.22% of native species. The families that stood out with the greatest diversity of species were Fabaceae (18), followed by Arecaceae (10), Bignoniaceae (8), Apocynaceae (6) and Malvaceae (6). Ficus benjamina L. and Azadirachta indica A. Juss, which are high in relation to the other individuals, totaling about 54.4% of the individuals sampled. The Jardim Iracema neighborhood had the largest number of individuals, while the João XXIII had the greatest diversity, the Itaoca neighborhood had the lowest diversity of species and the Bullfinch had the lowest abundance. The low diversity of trees, along with a great dominance of exotic species, suggests a process of disordered urbanization, often preceded by several suppressions and substitutions of the original vegetal cover, causing great biological and ecological losses to the ecosystems of the cities. Finally, when comparing floristic results to socioeconomic data, it was possible to draw a correlation between the quality of life of the population of a neighborhood and its afforestation. Therefore, the insertion of the social and economic factor broadens the discussion of the environmental issue, since it provides a determining factor for public policies for the management of urban natural resources, besides scientifically subsidizing new management plans more appropriate to the reality of each neighborhood.