Spatiotemporal evolution of changes in vegetation cover and land use in Sierra del Rosario, Cuba (2016 – 2024) Spatiotemporal evolution of changes in vegetation cover and land use in Sierra del Rosario, Cuba (2016 – 2024)

Abstract

The present work focuses on the spatio-temporal study of changes in land use and vegetation cover in an area of 25,532 hectares, with the aim of evaluating ecosystem services and conserving biodiversity. Using satellite images and QGIS 3.38 software, preprocessing and classification of Sentinel images were conducted to identify six types of land use: forestry, agricultural crops, livestock, settlements, bodies of water, and conservation areas. The study area was classified according to the NDVI index and supervised classification for the update of land use for each year from 2016 to 2024, which allowed for obtaining coverage values and calculating the annual change rate (TAC). An increase in dense vegetation of 24.74 % and a decrease in bare soil of 0.43 % were observed. Cyclonic activity is considered the main cause of the loss of vegetation cover in the Sierra del Rosario Biosphere Reserve, as the lowest NDVI peaks correspond to periods following these phenomena. The analysis of land use dynamics showed that forest cover represents 74 % of the study area, but there is a notable increase in crop areas now representing 12 %, settlements at 1.4 %, and bodies of water at 3 %, indicating higher change rates compared to other classes. This situation categorizes the region as a priority for ecological restoration through an integrated landscape management approach to prevent fragmentation of its ecosystems