Resumo

BOLLO MANENT, Manuel; MARTIN MORALES, Gustavo  e  MARTINEZ SERRANO, Ayesa. Green areas in the city of Morelia, Michoacán. Mexico. Invest. Geog [online]. 2022, n.107, e60494.  Epub 20-Jun-2022. ISSN 2448-7279.  https://doi.org/10.14350/rig.60494.

The management of green areas plays a central role in urban sustainability since vegetation cover has important environmental functions in urban areas. Urban green areas are key elements to improve the well-being of their inhabitants; they are not homogeneous but are differentiated into landscapes with coverages related to historical uses.

This article documents the landscapes that are part of green areas in the urban zone of the municipality of Morelia and establish their relationship with the number of inhabitants living in urban areas.

The methodology used for the identification and mapping of anthropogenic landscapes as units of analysis and differentiation in the study of vegetation is part of the geoecological approach. To differentiate these landscapes, we started by identifying the physical-geographic landscapes of the territory as the natural background on which the urbanization process takes place, modifying the original land cover and giving rise to different uses. The land uses in the territory are differentiated by establishing the typology of housing and infrastructures introduced in the physical-geographic landscapes where the city was established and by the modified natural covers that remain in a given moment. Then, by superimposing the typology of land uses and covers on the differentiation of the physical-geographic landscapes, geoecological units, i.e., spatial-territorial units, are obtained. They facilitate the classification and identification of the anthropogenic ̶ anthroponatural and anthropic ̶ landscapes of the territory. Certainly, the main transformative process of these landscapes has been urbanization.

To determine the extension of green areas, the Normalized Vegetation Index was calculated for the study area, which was contrasted with the anthropogenic landscape layer to estimate this surface area per landscape unit. From this, two indicators were established to achieve the proposed objective: the rate of green areas, which shows the percentage of the landscape covered by green areas, and the density of green areas per inhabitant once the population size has been calculated; both indicators are estimated for each class and type of anthropogenic landscape.

The results revealed the presence of two classes, 5 subclasses, and 19 types of anthropogenic landscapes, mapped in 437 polygons in the urban area of the municipality, with the predominance of urban anthropic landscapes. From these results, the main function of the landscapes in the territory studied is housing, which covers 70% of the territory. Infrastructure in productive or service facilities in this urban area shows that the primary economic function is related to services; there is low industrial activity, and vegetation and agriculture occupy less than 8% of the area, which will probably be used for urban growth or services.

The rate of green areas in the territory of study is low, and the main issue lies in the type of continuous housing landscapes of different densities. Commercial services and technogenic storage landscapes have a low rate of green areas. Separately, the issues with the density of green areas per inhabitant are concentrated in urban landscapes for housing purposes, which are home to 97.79% of the urban population, in particular in continuous housing landscapes of different densities, housing covering large areas, housing colonial-style landscapes (Historic Center), and buildings. In 2020, 87.6% of the urban inhabitants live in landscapes with a density of green areas per inhabitant of less than 10 m2/inhabitant, that is, below the recommended international standards. The methodology used to study the vegetation in the urban area of interest showed the relationship between the types of urban anthropic landscapes and the density of green areas per inhabitant, identifying and differentiating the main issues in the territory studied.

The city of Morelia urgently needs a reforestation program based on the differentiation into the anthropogenic landscape units obtained from these indicators. It is imperative to propose innovative projects and technologies in landscapes with a deficit of tree coverage, particularly in the Historic Center landscape.

Palavras-chave : green areas; anthropogenic landscape; urban typology; NDVI; geoecological approach.

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