Abstract

CRUZ-HUERTA, Carmina; GONZALEZ-GUILLEN, Manuel J.; MARTINEZ-TRINIDAD, Tomás  and  ESCALONA-MAURICE, Miguel J.. Modeling land-use change and future deforestation in two spatial scales. Rev. Chapingo ser. cienc. for. ambient [online]. 2015, vol.21, n.2, pp.137-156. ISSN 2007-4018.  https://doi.org/10.5154/r.rchscfa.2014.06.025.

Land-use changes in the Chignahuapan-Zacatlán region of the state of Puebla, Mexico, and in each of the two aforementioned counties, were determined using Landsat imagery and a bitemporal analysis of the period 1986-2011. The predominant land uses at the regional level are the agricultural (49.7 %) and forest (46.1) groupings. In the case of Chignahuapan county, agricultural use is the main activity with 58.9 % of the territory, while in Zacatlán county the predominant activity is forest use with 57.3 % of the land base. At the regional level and for Zacatlán county, the probabilistic model of forest land-use change was significantly correlated (P ≤ 0.05) with 21 independent variables; however, for Chignahuapan, the model only considered 16 variables. At the regional level, the probability of forest land changing to other uses ranged from 5-90 % and at the county level from 7-99.8 %. Finally, the projection for the year 2030 estimates that the deforestation risk at the regional level and in Chignahuapan and Zacatlán counties is 13,063.8, 10,966.6 and 4,405.5 ha, respectively.

Keywords : Deforestation patterns; Chignahuapan; Zacatlán; land uses.