Analysis of the pertinence of forest plantations in Oaxaca

Abstract

The assessment of large-scale vegetation cover is a complicated and expensive task; however, remote sensing has facilitated the study of its dynamics and spatial distribution, based on the biomass estimator, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The need to know the success of the forest plantations established in the tropical and temperate region of southern Oaxaca during the 2014-2016 period, as well as the complexity and high costs implicit in the traditional evaluation of large-scale vegetation cover, motivated the use of NDVI and other geomatic techniques to estimate biomass and determine the environmental factors that influence its development. For this, the biomass was obtained by processing three series of satellite images: two from the Landsat 8 OLI sensor and one from the Sentinel-2. Through a canonical correspondence analysis, the variables that affected its dynamics were defined. And, from an analysis with time series it was determined that the plantations of the tropical and temperate zones present good development, but of different behavior between both. The environmental variables that affect its dynamics are altitude, precipitation, temperature, evapotranspiration, humidity and pH. Therefore, it is important to consider the environmental factors and the ecological requirements of the species before their establishment.