Abstract

HERNANDEZ-MORENO, Mayra Mónica et al. Vegetation cover and land use distribution in the Municipality of Zapotitlán, Puebla, Mexico. Rev. Mex. Biodiv. [online]. 2021, vol.92, e923649.  Epub Nov 29, 2021. ISSN 2007-8706.  https://doi.org/10.22201/ib.20078706e.2021.92.3649.

The identification of Land Use and Vegetation Cover (LUVC) distribution is relevant for sustainable land management and planification of any territory. The aim of this study is to present the current spatial distribution of LUVC of the Municipality of Zapotitlán, Puebla, with a map on a scale of 1:50,000. We classified a Landsat-8 OLI satellite image using the random forest method, field verification data, and complemented the analysis with topographic and climatic variables. We obtained an overall accuracy of 68% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.63. We found that 79.7% of the area still holds natural vegetation cover, being the tetecho, Cephalocereus tetetzo, forest (“tetechera”) the dominant class (21.2%). In 8.9% of the territory, people carry out agricultural activities and 10.1% correspond to bare soil. Much of the area still holds natural vegetation, however, the cartography of LUVC distribution in that geographical scale, will allow to analyze the modification or conversion processes, assess the impact of conservation actions, and guide actions for the sustainable management of natural vegetation cover.

Keywords : Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley; Plant associations; Image classification by learning machine; Random forest; LANDSAT-8.

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