The study was conducted in the Araripe plasterer pole located at Piaui, Pernambuco and Ceara border, Brazil, with an area of approximately 10,000 km2. The region is experiencing an accelerated degradation process due to improper management of natural resources. Extensive areas of native forests are being cleared and used for energy production for the gypsum industry. In 1997, it was created the Araripe Environmental Protection Area (APA), in order to reduce and mitigate environmental degradation processes. The purpose of this APA was not to stop the activity in that region, but to adapt it in a sustainable manner, since the plaster pole is over an area of high vulnerability to desertification processes. The inappropriate use of natural resources in this region may intensify the environmental problems and accelerate the desertification process. Thus, the aim of this paper is to monitor the environmental degradation in the APA region during a period of 16 years, and evaluate if this region is been preserved since APA creation. To achieve the proposed aim we mapped deforestation and natural forest from 1990 to 2006 (one image every four years) using Landsat TM 5. We applied the Linear Spectral Mixing Model and we did a band ration between the resulting vegetation and soil bands which allowed a better identification of deforested areas. The results show that the deforestation had decreased since the APA creation and thus had a positive effect on the preservation of this vulnerable area.
Redes Sociais