Mapping environmental indicators and Remote Sensing and GIS techniques applied to coastal regions. Study Case: Santos/São Vicente Estuarine System, São Paulo

Abstract

This project examines the evolutive characteristics of an impacted tropical estuary (Santos/São Vicente region, São Paulo state) providing opportunities to assess the cumulative impact of environmental changes and their consequences on the land use/occupation. To achieve this objective we propose the implementation and analysis of a geographically referenced database, temporal satellite images in order to select a set of target areas where we will investigate the relationships between various environmental patterns such as local vegetation, human occupation and erosional and depositional indicators. Based on the empirical relationships found, the project assesses the utility of models of land-use patterns based on remote sensing as indicators of environmental conditions, furthering the integration of causal factors into environmental monitoring frameworks for coastal zones. (AU)