Analysis of the landscape dynamics in the municipality of Rio Verde, Goiás, Brazil: a tool to choose priority areas for conservation

Abstract

In a landscape, it is important to consider its dynamic to understand the causes of habitat loss and its relationship with other elements to propose priority areas for biodiversity conservation. In the present study, we considered the municipality of Rio Verde (GO) and analyzed its landscape in the years 1987 and 2016. This municipality has a primarily agricultural economy and, therefore, its natural habitats had been converted into anthropic landscapes. We conducted the initial analysis by interpreting the images of Landsat satellite for the years of 1987 and 2016, where we characterized: 1) increase in the agriculture areas; 2) reduction in the pasture areas; 3) reduction in the areas of savanna formation; 4) increase in the areas of forest formation; and 5) increase in the areas of Campestre formation. We observed that those areas of abandoned pasture or areas of savanna formation altered over the years were occupied by areas of Campestre formation. Based on landscape metrics obtained from Fragstats software, we observed that isolation was not altered among the analyzed class, except for urban areas and water. In 2016, the municipality of Rio Verde had only 198 fragments of native vegetation with more than 100 hectares. Therefore, we suggest such fragments are the most priority to conserve the local biodiversity.

Keywords:
Fragmentation; Habitat loss; Fragstats; Insulation; Cerrado