Bodies of water, like rivers, are ecosystems that perform ecological, economic and social functions and are directly related to the qualification of a city. However, with the disorderly and intense urban expansion this type of ecosystem has been the target of frequent anthropic attacks. Faced with this problem, it is essential to obtain updated data as a subsidy to analyze the dynamics of the areas that are destined to environmental conservation. This study aimed to identify, through geotechnology, changes in soil cover occurred in the years of 1974, 1997 and 2016 in the Water Body Conservation Zone (ZCA) of the protection zone of the Jaboatão river, located in the Jardim Barra de Jangada, municipality of Jaboatão dos Guararapes / PE. For this, orthophotocards were used, referring to the year 1974, and aerial images for the other periods, originating from the aerophotogrammetry service. These materials were manipulated in UTM coordinates in the Geocentric Reference System for the Americas (SIRGAS) through free software QGIS, where they were submitted to visual and supervised photointerpretation techniques. Based on this analysis, it was possible to obtain thematic maps with classes of use and land cover, where a significant increase in the anthropic area index was observed, totaling 53,46% of the studied region. Through the obtained results, the use of geotechnology as a viable and agile alternative to promote adequate environmental planning.