Multitemporal Analysis of Land Use Changes and Their Effect on the Landscape of the Jerte Valley (Spain) by Remote Sensing

In recent years, the interest of institutions in land use has increased, creating the need to determine the changes in use through spatial-temporal and statistical analysis. This study analyzes the changes over the last 40 years, based on a cartography of landscape units obtained from the study of geo-environmental parameters in the Jerte Valley (Spain) with satellite images, Landsat 5 and 7. Subsequently, through the analysis of spatial patterns and diversity and fragmentation indices, and with the Fragstat software, the landscape was characterized from 1994 to the present. The results show that wooded areas decreased slightly, crops increased in altitude and major environmental disturbances (mainly forest fires) negatively affected the environmental mosaic. Land uses affect the landscape by developing larger tesserae (+5 ha), which are less fragmented (-0.15), but more isolated (0.12). This study demonstrates that landscape metrics can be used to understand changes in spatial pattern, help in decision making to implement appropriate management measures in the conservation of traditional land uses, and allow the maintenance of connecting areas between fragments to avoid the loss of natural corridors to increase landscape quality.