Monitoring endangered cork oak areas: a case study in Portugal
- Autores: Augusta Costa, Helena Pereira
- Localización: Suberwood: new challenges for the integration of cork oak forests and products / Javier Vázquez Piqué (ed. lit.), Helena Pereira (ed. lit.), María Arantzazu González Pérez (ed. lit.), 2008, ISBN 978-84-96826-47-2, págs. 319-327
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Forest ecosystems in mediterranean regions like the cork oak forest "montado de sobro" in Alentejo, are important social, economic and environmental resources that are threatened by degradation phenomena, directly or indirectly caused by human activities. These ecosystems, for which water availability is usually one major, limiting factor, are expected to be sensitive to climate changes mainly when the forest environment equilibrium is fragile and consequently highly vulnerable to perturbations.
The operational utilization of remote sensing for monitoring terrestrial ecosystems in a montado area in the region of Santiago do Cacém using cartographic indicators for a 35-year period (1958-1995) provide a synoptic information over the temporal landscape transformations particularly of forest mosaic, structure, productivity and sustainability, and allows the identification of temporal changes on land uses.
Trend analysis of the multitemporal data series showed some differences on the cork oak forest area especially in its structure, mosaic and calculated productivity. Hat spats of endangered areas were identified but the meaning and implications of the results should be carefully evaluated and crossed with other information like meteorological data, forest practices and soil characterization.
