FIDALGO, E. C. C.

HEINRICH, J.

NAEGELI, F.

NEHREN, U.

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143Islands in land- and seascape: The Challenges of Fragmentation | Erlangen, 22-25 Feb. 2012SAT 09:15 KILIMANJAROSESSION: HUMAN ECOLOGYSPATIAL ANALYSIS OF FOREST FRAGMENTATION FOR BUFFER ZONE MANAGEMENT IN THE ATLANTIC FOREST OF RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL Friederike Naegeli1,2, Udo Nehren1,2, Elaine Fidalgo3, Jürgen Heinrich1 1University of Leipzig, Institute of Geography, Leipzig, DE 2Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics, Cologne University of Applied Sciences, Cologne, DE, friederike.naegeli@uni-leipzig.de 3EMBRAPA Solos, Rio de Janeiro, BR The Brazilian Atlantic Forest is one of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth, being the habitat for numerous endangered and endemic species. Historical deforesta-ͳͳǤ͸Ȃͳ͸ǤͲΨextend, which is estimated with 1.0 to 1.5 million km². The remaining forests are highly fragmented and in many places still under high land use pressure. There-fore the Atlantic Forest is considered a biodiversity hotspot.Conservation strategies are regionally concentrated in two Biodiversity Conser-vation Corridors (BCCs): The Central corridor and the Serra do Mar corridor. The latter covers an area of about 120,600 km² in the states of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Paraná, and represents the largest relatively intact block of Atlantic Forest. The study area of the presented research is located in the northeastern Serra do Mar corridor, in the upper Guapi-Macacu Watershed, at the foothills of the Serra dos Órgãos mountain range in the state of Rio de Janeiro.The study aims at analyzing land use changes during the last 70 years, as well as the actual state of forest fragmentation. The analysis was conducted based on visual interpretation of historic aerial images from 1966 and 1973 and supervised ϐȋͷͳͻͺͲͷʹͲͲ͵ʹͲͲͺȌǤϐͷͶǤ͹ϐǤ  historical images and subsequent comparison with the forest cover derived from ϐϐchange.An analysis of forest patterns using FRAGSTATS and ArcGIS 9.3 to calculate land-scape metrics demonstrate that out of 330 forest fragments (> 0.5 ha) located in the study area only 94 appeared to be larger than 5 ha. Assuming that the frag-ϐͳͲͲǡͷʹencompass one or more core areas. It could be shown that intensive deforesta-tion and fragmentation processes took place in the mid-20th century. In the last two decades, deforestation slowed and some forest gaps closed most likely due to natural succession of abandoned pastures and small plantations. The results of ϐ-tion and reforestation priorities in the watershed. 

Spatial analysis of forest fragmentation for buffer zone management in the Atlantic Forest of Rio de Janeiro.

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