Land-cover change analysis of eastem hills of Bogotá. On the last 40 years

Abstract

This study provides a quantitative analysis of the land cover changes on the Eastern Hills of Bogotá, between the 70-decade and the 2000-decade. In general, the study analyzes the facts that are associated to the change in the landscape structure. One of the ideas is to compare the digital orthophoto mosaics of the first period of time and satellite images for the last period. Different landscape metrics were employed with the use of GIS. According to the comparison of the results found, it has been observed that between seventies and nineties the natural and half natural land cover decreases remarkably on its area, stabilizing to the decade of 2000. Changes in the first period are linked to the accelerate establishing of anthropic land covers as the urban settlements and the proliferation of exotic forestry plantations. These processes can be resume as the principal causes of the transformation on natural land covers in the eastern hills of Bogotá.