Land use and land cover change dynamics in a protected Caatinga’s landscape and its buffer zone

Abstract

(1) Studies on land use and land cover in the Caatinga domain are still insufficient, especially when they are aimed at understanding how this phenomenon occurs within protected landscapes and their surroundings. Therefore, based on this premise below, the research aims to diagnose changes in land use and land cover in a protected Caatinga landscape and its buffer zone, taking into account the pre and post-production period of the UC; (2) Soon, the use of the hybrid classification method was launched, in order to obtain land cover classes over the space and time of the landscape of the Mata da Pimenteira State Park, Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil; (3) The results made it possible to perceive the increase in the main indicative classes of shrub and tree-shrub vegetation, growing approximately 1,718.1 ha for a buffer zone and 225.3 ha in the protected area; (4) From this work, it can be seen that the creation of UC helped to reestablish the landscape composition, promoting the recovery of degraded areas. In addition, it was possible to notice that, despite the increase in vegetation over the landscape, there was an intensification of the use of areas of interest, with an increase in areas with exposed soil.