Analysis of change in vegetation cover linked to public policies, case study: Tenosique, Tabasco, Mexico.

Abstract

<p>Currently, natural areas are being devastated by anthropogenic activity. Activities such as agriculture, illegal logging, non-organic farms, and livestock exploitation, disrupt an ecosystem that has been in balance for many years. Therefore, regulations implemented by governments are required for their preservation. However, these regulations are not always the most used in terms of conservation. Such is the case of the town "Tenosique", in this area is one of the most important rivers in Mesoamerica, the Usumacinta River, which is a great regulator of ecological processes and is connected to Mexico with Guatemala. This site has been under the influence of regulations applied to the economic impulse of the area, whether for agricultural and livestock activities, which has affected the apparent vegetation cover, unlike Guatemala that has opted for regulations with a forest conservation approach. These policies sought to boost the agricultural sector, but many deforested areas to carry out this activity turned out not to be suitable due to the type of soil. With the change of regime, financing ends and with it economic activity decreases, leaving the area quite affected and the communities with financial problems. Recently, conservation and protection actions were implemented in the area together with support for these communities. The proximity between Mexico and Guatemala visually shows the results of the application of different public policies. The objective of this study is to quantify the loss and gain of vegetation over time from satellite images of the area, in order to compare this statistic with the different government programs of each era. For this, at least 10 multispectral satellite images of free access will be used, from the Landsat 7 satellite, which has 30 meters of resolution but visually adjustable to 15 meters with the union of its panchromatic channel, and that cover a time range from 1999 to 2020. On these, two processes will be carried out: 1) a normalized vegetation index calculation and 2) a supervised classification. With which it is intended to measure the area and the greenness of a mask of the vegetation cover. The results will serve to update the projects carried out on the site and detect areas of priority interest resolution for larger projects, as well as the future estimation of the critical state of the site regarding the loss of vegetation cover and quantify the conservation efforts that have been carried out. carried out from 2008 to the present.</p>