Changes in forest cover in Sierra Nevada, Mexico, 1994–2015

Abstract

Sierra Nevada, 153,437 ha, has the second and third highest mountains in Mexico and the most conserved coniferous forests of central Mexico. It comprises the Los Volcanes Biosphere Reserve, designated by UNESCO in 2010. A map was produced at 1:100,000 scale. Recent changes in forest cover were identified by visual interpretation of orthophotographs from 1994 and Spot 7 images from 2015. Changes were detected in forest cover density (closed, semi-closed, semi-open, open or deforested), together with a non-forest category that includes other land uses. Over the 21 years, 25% of the forest had undergone change: 14% recovery and 11% disturbance. Recovery outweighed disturbance in the Protected Areas, with possible factors being payment for environmental services, periodic reforestation and fire control. Outside this protected area, improvement outweighed degradation, mainly because of forestry programs. Overall in the Sierra Nevada, the trend appears to be forest recovery.

Digital adaptation of the Geomorphological Map of Upper Silesian Industrial Region, Poland (1:50,000) – old map new possibilities

“…Historical maps are used in earth sciences and serve as a powerful tool for geomorphological analysis and reconstruction, in particular in areas affected by rapid morphologic change and modified by human activity, e.g. reconstructing salt marsh losses (Bromberg & Bertness, 2005), long term analysis of land cover change (Pătru-Stupariu et al, 2011), rapid mapping of urban development from scanned historical maps (Visser, 2014), reconstructing historic European land cover/use change (Fuchs et al, 2015), reconstructing the hydrographical network and geomorphological setting (Furlanetto & Bondesan, 2015), reconstructing historic forest area and historic forest types (Munteanu et al, 2015), reconstructing water areas (Pavelková et al, 2016), historic analyses of land use of the Carpathian area (Lieskovský et al, 2018), studies of forest cover changes (Godziek & Szypuła, 2018, 2020López-García, 2019) or research on historical land-use and land-cover of urban areas (Drummond et al, 2019).…”