Using geotechnologies towards landscape-level forest management

摘要

This paper analyzes the pattern of forest fragmentation within a 2-km-buffer around an Araucarian Forest Reserve in Southern Brazil, defined as the surrounding landscape. Nine land use classes were determined by visual interpretation of a 4-m-resolution Ikonos II image and field checking. A GIS-based landscape analysis was performed and metrics referring to patch density, size, edge and shape were calculated. Only 17% of the fragments possess an area larger than 5 ha, and the shape of the largest ones is irregular. A density of 1.02 fragments/100 ha, was computed, which indicates a high level of forest fragmentation. Simulated scenarios for 50-m-edge-loss effects showed that patch density would decrease from 1.02 to 0.34 patches per each 100 ha. It is suggested that connectivity can be improved by means of simple measures such as compliance with existing environmental laws.