Landscape Fragmentation at Arauco Province in the Chilean Forestry Model Context (1976–2016)

Edilia Jaque Castillo, Carolina G. Ojeda () and Rodrigo Fuentes Robles
Additional contact information
Edilia Jaque Castillo: Departamento de Geografía, Facultad de Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Geografía, Universidad de Concepción, Edmundo Larenas s/n, Concepción 4030000, Chile
Carolina G. Ojeda: Doctorado en Arquitectura y Estudios Urbanos, Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Estudios Urbanos, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Lo Contador 1980, Santiago de Chile 7500000, Chile
Rodrigo Fuentes Robles: Laboratorio de Ecología de Paisaje (LEP), Facultad de Ciencias Forestales, Universidad de Concepción, Edmundo Larenas s/n, Concepción 4030000, Chile

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-15

Abstract: Land Cover–Land Use Changes (LULCC) and landscape fragmentation have been a common research topic for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) scientists since the middle of the 20th century; particularly, they have helped to make accessible the spatial characteristics of land management through time. We researched LULCC and landscape fragmentation in Arauco Province in Chile using satellite image analysis (1976–2016) and FRAGSTAT software. This area is in a constant struggle for land use between agroindustry, urban sprawl, and the expansion of exotic plantations (pine-eucalyptus) subsidized by Chilean government. The main results are: (1) we obtained the surface percentages for each land cover , (2) net changes for each cover by adding and losing surface (ha), (3) the transition map that enlightens the surface transformations of LULCC by its four processes substitution, abandonment, habilitation, regeneration and degradation, (4) the native forest loss in the first half of the period (1976–2001) was 1.85%/year, meanwhile for the second half (2001–2016) it was 6.5%/year, (5) landscape fragmentation processes occurred in patches and deforestation is its main driver, (6) aggregation changed the landscape since fragmentation and deforestation processes started the substitution of native forest, and (7) the habilitation of agricultural lands and degradation of wooded masses with exotic species increased their aggregation to 90%.

Keywords: deforestation; vegetation map; landscape fragmentation; land use; Chile (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/11/1992/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/11/1992/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:11:p:1992-:d:965449

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().