The special structure of Araguari’s river basin patches in Minas Gerais

Abstract

The elements that make up the landscape (fragments and matrix) are subjects of the study into Landscape Ecology through geoprocessing techniques it is possible to quantitatively analyze the size, shape, number, type and configuration of ecosystems (patches). The study area of this research is the river  basin of the Rio Araguari-MG that is located in the region of Triangulo Mineiro and Alto Paranaíba, in the western part of the state of Minas Gerais, covering an area of 22,146.23 square kilometers. The images used for extracting the areas of native forest vegetation of this basin are the sensor used in this process was the Oli / Landsat 8 which has a spatial resolution of 30 meters. As a result, the study area has 142,492.00 units with at least 900 m², the metrics evaluated Landscape Ecology refer to the shape, size, edge density, length of edge and core area for each fragment: very small small, medium and large.