Assessment of Land Cover Changes in the Hinterland of Barranquilla (Colombia) Using Landsat Imagery and Logistic Regression

Abstract

Barranquilla is known as a dynamically growing city in the Colombian Caribbean. Urbanisation induces land use and land cover (LULC) changes in the city and its hinterland affecting the region’s climate and biodiversity. This paper aims to identify the trends of land use and land cover changes in the hinterland of Barranquilla corresponding to 13 municipalities in the north of the Department Atlántico. Landsat TM/ETM/OLI imagery from 1985 to 2017 was used to map and analyse the spatio-temporal development of land use and land cover changes. During the investigation period, the settlement areas grew by approximately 50% (from 103.3 to 153.6 km2), while areas with woody vegetation cover experienced dynamic changes and increased in size since 2001. Peri-urban and rural areas were characterized by highly dynamic changes, particularly regarding clearing and recovery of vegetated areas. Regression analyses were performed to identify the impact factors of detected vegetation cover changes. Computed logistic regression models included 20 independent variables, such as relief, climate, soil, proximity characteristics and socio-economic data. The results of this study may act as a basis to enable researchers and decision-makers to focus on the most important signals of systematic landscape transformations and on the conservation of ecosystems and the services they provide.

Land Use Changes and Their Perception in the Hinterland of Barranquilla, Colombian Caribbean

“…By limiting the mapping to the villages of El Morro and Juaruco, the land use changes caused by the gated community projects El Santuario, Jwaeirruku, and Velamar were very dominant and led to a rather continuous loss of woody vegetation in the small area between 2008 and 2017/18 (Figure 2). In a study analyzing land use and land cover changes based on Landsat images, an increase in woody vegetation is described for the periods [1985][1986][1987][1988][1989][1990][1990][1991][1992][1993][1994][1995][1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001], and 2010-2017 for the entire municipality of Tubará, as well as for the larger study area of the PGIS workshop, while a loss of woody vegetation was detected between 2001 and 2010 [8]. In spite of variations in woody vegetation losses and gains in the periods, the total extent of woody vegetation areas in the study area of the PGIS workshop remained relatively constant with an average net gain of woody vegetation areas of 0.04 km 2 per year over the whole of the period from 1985 to 2017 [8].…”

“…In a study analyzing land use and land cover changes based on Landsat images, an increase in woody vegetation is described for the periods [1985][1986][1987][1988][1989][1990][1990][1991][1992][1993][1994][1995][1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001], and 2010-2017 for the entire municipality of Tubará, as well as for the larger study area of the PGIS workshop, while a loss of woody vegetation was detected between 2001 and 2010 [8]. In spite of variations in woody vegetation losses and gains in the periods, the total extent of woody vegetation areas in the study area of the PGIS workshop remained relatively constant with an average net gain of woody vegetation areas of 0.04 km 2 per year over the whole of the period from 1985 to 2017 [8]. However, this finding and several observations during the scientific mapping contradict the perceptions of the local community who see a linear trend of continuous forest loss since 1982 (see Section 5.3).…”

“…This leads to their marginalization and the threat of their displacement. While there is a clear negative trend for cropland, the trend is not so consistent for pasture farming; while some owners have given up their livestock, others have increased their livestock and expanded the land they used [8,52,53]. For the gated community projects, it was mostly the owners of medium-sized estates who gave up their pasture farming and sold their land to construction companies [46,51,54].…”

“…Two recent studies about land use and land cover changes and their drivers exist for the Barranquilla area: an analysis of the social-ecological history of the Barranquilla metropolitan region [7] and a regional assessment of land cover changes between 1985 and 2017 for the northern part of the Atlántico Department [8]. These studies describe various processes such as urbanization, the abandonment of agricultural land, the dynamics of woody vegetation driven by population concentration, infrastructure projects, sand and gravel extraction, and further socio-economic and political changes [7,8]. A local study could provide a more detailed view of the interaction of drivers and environmental degradation [9].…”

“…Due to constant use, only a few dry forest fragments remain and only a small percentage is declared as protected [15,16]. The current woody areas in the hilly coastal strip of the Atlántico Department are predominantly secondary forest or areas in various stages of natural recovery [8,17]. However, they still harbor high biodiversity and provide many important ecosystem services such as carbon storage, water purification, and erosion control [18][19][20].…”