Análise espaço-temporal dos manguezais degradados de Bragança, com base em imagens de satélite e modelos de elevação digital

Abstract

The Bragança Peninsula occurs at the northern littoral of Brazil, in the state of Pará. It is characterized by the largest continuous mangrove belt in the world. The construction of the PA- 458 road in the ‘70s changed the hydrodynamics of the peninsula, causing the degradation of a considerable portion of the mangroves in the central region of the peninsula. Recently, degraded areas are being colonized by mangrove trees, mainly by the Avicennia germinans specie. This study intends to identify changes in the degraded areas of the tidal flats in topographically higher sectors during the last 35 years. To reach that objective, we used the following techniques: a) manual mapping of the degraded areas with mid spatial resolution satellite imagery; b) object-based classification of the degraded areas and mangrove species, using high spatial resolution satellite imagery; c) photogrammetry of drone imagery; d) digital elevation models; and e) topographic validation with theodolite and GNSS GPS “Antenna Catalyst”. From 1986 to 2019, there was a reduction in the degraded areas of 247.96 ha according to the mid-resolution “dataset” quantification. However, high-resolution data showed a reduction in the degraded areas of 211.65 ha between 2003 and 2019. The degraded areas quantification presents fluctuations in the regeneration trend; it is related to significant climatic phenomena such as “El Niño” and “La Niña”, accompanied by periods of drought and high rainfall, respectively. Overall accuracy and Kappa index values for the high-resolution data generally exhibited values above 0.9. Producers’ and users’ accuracy and Kappa per class values showed the difficulties separating mangrove species due to the lack of radiometric resolution of the analyzed images. The digital terrain model representing the tidal flat showed two topographically differentiated regions in the degraded areas, separated by the PA-458 road, which are mainly influenced by the Caeté’s and Taperaçú’s characteristics. This same difference was found in the vegetation height model, where the largest trees are located toward the SE side of the road, reaching 25 m, while at the NW side of the road, the tree heights oscillated mainly between 5 and 15 m. The sea-level rise specifically controls regeneration rates. This relocated the intertidal zone to topographically higher areas, increasing tidal flushing processes, essential for the mangrove forests development.