An Approach to Environmental Planning and Sustainable Management of Watersheds and Municipalities in Southeastern Brazil

Abstract

Diagnosis of fragmentation and landscape sustainability conditions are essential to environmental planning and sustainable management of natural resources. Land use spatial patterns and landscape structural indexes (landscape metrics, Urbanity Index-UI, and Landscape Vulnerability Index-LVI) have been proposed to assess biodiversity conservation and ecological sustainability, provided by impact of land use at Middle Mogi Guaçu watershed and its seventeen municipalities, in 2009. Land use typologies and structural indexes values were obtained based on screen digitizing of LandSat-5 imagery, for 2009. Cluster analysis and Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variance were used to test the null hypothesis of equal degrees of fragmentation and sustainability conditions among municipalities in 2009, respectively. Land use spatial pattern showed a predominantly human occupation for watershed and its municipalities, with agricultural use as the main pressure factor. Municipalities were aggregated into three clusters related to forest fragmentation: one categorized by fifteen municipalities; the second cluster (municipality of Luiz Antônio) showing the best condition, and the third group (municipality of Araraquara) with extreme fragmentation condition. Landscape metrics related with shape, size, and core areas fragments intensify edge effects, and increase habitat isolation. The watershed showed a low naturalness and an intermediate degree of vulnerability. Ecological sustainability was different among municipalities (α = 0.05, F = 32.65 and p = 0.002), with two municipalities (Analândia and Luiz Antônio) presenting the best conditions. The most committed condition was observed, in municipalities of Rincão and Guatapará. For conservation policies to be effective must focus on the creation of ecological corridors around legally protected areas, besides creation of new legal reserves, with purpose to improve biodiversity conservation and ecological sustainability of Middle Mogi Guaçu watershed and its municipalities.

Assessing Naturalness Changes Resulting from a Historical Land Use in Brazil South Region: An Analysis of the 1986-2016 Period

“…This trend is supported by the predominance of areas with medium/low and low naturalness, categorized by UI values between > 0.5 to 1.0 (Table 2). The predominance of agricultural anthropic areas reverting to landscapes with low naturalness is also reported in other studies[23] [45][46].…”

“…[23] [24].This work presents an empirical analysis of the effects of land use on the dynamics of composition and naturalness, to identify critical or favorable scenarios for the ecological sustainability of a biocultural landscape of the Northern Region of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Brazil, based on a descriptive view of the urbanity index, over a 30-year period (1986 to 2016). The impacts of an anthropogenic past resulting from land use transitions, inducing changes in landscape naturalness, have resulted in essential information from the current and historical ecological sustainability scenarios of the Northern Region of Rio Grande do Sul, like a support for decision-making for the management of regional biodiversity.…”

Land Use Change Trajectories for Wetland Management (Mogi-Guaçu Floodplan River, Southern Brazil)

“…This condition was reported in the Mogi Guaçu river basin, where the sugarcane cultivation corresponds to the predominant anthropogenic land use [37]. These land use increased hydrological and physiographic changes throughout the Mogi Guaçu wetland, resulting in intensive erosion and sedimentation along the river channel [11].…”