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

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%.