Spatiotemporal analysis of land use and land cover in the Marataoan river basin, Piauí, Brazil, in the years 1985, 2024, and 2023

Abstract

The advance of agriculture and the expansion of urban space have caused major transformations in the landscape, resulting in significant environmental changes. These changes are more noticeable when observing the vegetation cover. With the growth of agricultural activities, vast areas of native vegetation have been replaced by pastures and agricultural crops. Thus, the present work sought to recognize the dynamics of the society/nature relationship expressed in the landscape through the mosaic of land use and land cover. It aims to analyze the dynamics of land use and land cover in the Marataoan River basin between the years 1985 and 2023. The methodology adopted has a mixed nature, combining bibliographic survey, geoprocessing techniques and fieldwork. The data were obtained through the MapBiomas project, and were later worked on in a GIS environment, in addition to the application of mathematical techniques for geostatistical analysis. The results of the analyses pointed to the occurrence of significant changes in the use and cover of the Marataoan basin, indicating a great suppression of the savanna formation area, with a reduction of 37.4%, and a considerable increase in pasture areas, expanding 515.4% in relation to 1985. This points to a strong correlation between pasture expansion and the loss of savannah cover. It is concluded that the MapBiomas data are quite reliable; associated with field validation, allowed the verification of profound changes in land use and land cover in the Marataoan River basin.