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| Author(s): |
Elisa Hardt Alves Vieira
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo |
| Defense date: | 2010-02-07 |
| Examining board members: |
Rozely Ferreira dos Santos;
José Salatiel Rodrigues Pires;
Sinésio Scarabello Filho;
Lauro Luiz Francisco Filho;
Diogenes Cortijo Costa
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| Advisor: | Rozely Ferreira dos Santos |
| Abstract | |
The proposal of strategies and valuation criteria for biological conservation based on structural elements of the landscape may help the process of environmental planning and decisionmaking. This study was aimed at assessing the quality of the conservation status of past and present landscapes and expectations of social groups scenarios based on the interpretation of the structural heterogeneity and the valuation of the landscape. This study was conducted in Serra do Japi, a preserved and legally protected area in São Paulo State. The case study was the Ermida residence property development, which was legally approved before the protective measures for the preservation of Serra do Japi, and that currently faces restrictions for its implementation. Geographic Information Systems and statistic software were used to: map land use, construct scenarios, identify borders, create mosaics and appraise the landscape based on resource availability, permeability, and fragmentation. The results revealed that measurements of the amount of forest may lead to decisions different from those based on the evaluation of the heterogeneity of landscape mosaics, which was more effective to show evidences of historical changes and interactions, and establishment of limits. The metrics of valuation indicated that the increase in the amount of habitat not always represented an increase in landscape quality. An access road was the anthropogenic component with the highest impact on forests. The extent of the edge effect varied depending on the neighborhood and on the indicator of this effect in the structure or composition of the forest. This study revealed that the changes in the last 40 years in Serra do Japi evolved toward conservation, regarding quantity, availability of resources and permeability of the landscape. Unlike the expected, the legal scenario presented a stronger tendency of fragmentation of the landscape than the current situation. In the case of the Ermida development area, the criteria used did not indicate a substantial loss of forests in the area and its existence did not prevent the continuity of the successional process, as well as the connectivity of the landscape. On the other hand, the availability of optimum resources greatly decreased, caused by the availability of access roads and by the resulting edge effect. Because of that, among the expectations of social groups, the best alternative for conservation was the one that predicted the optimization of road access. (AU) | |