Análisis de dos metodologías para la determinación de la tasa de deforestación y su aplicación en Morona Santiago

Abstract

The objective of this study is to measure the deforestation rate that exist in the Ecuadorian Amazon region and specifically in Morona Santiago province. A comparison between two methods used to measure deforestation by two institutions “Ministerio del Ambiente” (MAE) and the “Red Amazónica de Información Socioambiental Georreferenciada” (RAISG) was carried out. Both institutions are dedicated to collect input data to quantify the deforestation. Results show that the methodology used by RAISG, uses data processing models that allows us to better understand the unique conditions of the studied area. RAISG test, with methods for Brazilian amazon forest and chose the methods with the best results. On the other hand, MAE as a public institution, has more resources and field validation methods, even though their studied area covers multiple ecosystems of the coast, high land and the Amazon region, that is why their methods do not focus just in the reality of the Amazon region. RAISG presented a deforested area of 1.053 km2 for the period 2000-2005, while MAE got 3.216 km2 in the period of 2000-2008. This data were adjusted for the period 2000-2014 to be compared according to MAE the deforestation area was 1.331,94 km2 for RAISG 438,91 km2.