POTENTIAL OF GEOTECHNOLOGIES FOR MONITORING THE IMPACT OF COLONIZATION ON THE NATIVE FOREST IN THE MICROBASIN OF RIO ENGANADO, WESTERN AMAZON, BRAZIL

Abstract

The Amazon rainforest is considered the largest tropical forest in the world, with an abundance of water resources. Despite the great wealth of this region, there is an unrestrained advance in deforestation and, consequently, the potential for environmental degradation of these resources. In light of the above, the work aimed to demonstrate the potential of geotechnologies for monitoring forest cover in the Western Amazon, using the Enganado River microbasin as an example. The analysis of the microbrace was performed using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), with images from Landsat 5 and Landsat 8, for the years 1987, 1997, 2007 and 2017. The microbasin has a total area of ​​152.64 km2, and area of ​​riparian forest of 28.18 km2. In 30 years, the colonization process has caused constant deforestation in the microbasin and in the riparian forest area of ​​the Enganado River, reaching 73.23% and 70.90% in 2017, respectively. This scenario denotes the susceptibility to water scarcity in the microbasin, due to the loss of quantity and quality of water, and mitigating measures are recommended for the recovery of riparian forest areas and the implementation of forest and/or agroforestry systems in the region.