The Use of Remote Sensing and Landscape Metrics to Analyze Land Use Evolution in Rural Areas of the Municipality of Passo Fundo/RS (Brazil)

Abstract

The use of remote sensing in the design of land use mapping allows analyses of landscape evolution during a certain period of time which helps studies in a global scope. The objective of this study is to identify and analyze changes in characteristics of rural land use in the municipality of Passo Fundo, located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, during the years 2001 and 2020, through images taken from the Landsat TM-7 and TM-8 satellites. Methodologically, satellite images were classified by supervised methods, generating thematic maps, and taking into account the following groups: tillage (growing area), forest, exposed soil and water resources. Results demonstrated that the process of connecting agricultural crop patches went from 5.495 in 2001 to a figure of 10.812 in 2020, thus having an increase of 96%.