A alteração do uso do solo no município de Ibirité e conseqüências associadas

Abstract

As a town, Ibirité was historically characterized to be dedicated to the agricultural activity, however, changes in its economic profile during the study period, have altered land use in the municipality. In this sense this research aims to investigate land use alteration in Ibirité by relating such alteration to urban expansion and also verify possible environmental issues due to that land-use modification. For this analysis, three land-use maps of the municipality area, covering periods of 1977, 1989 and 2006, were made, they showed land-use modification in Ibirité. Subsequently a vectorial map of urban expansion was made, which in turn allowed us to analyze the dynamics of the urban area expansion process in the study municipality. Results have shown that there was large alteration in Ibirité’s land use, mostly related to urban area expansion in replacement for woodlands, agriculture and grazing. In some cases urbanization has taken mountainside areas risking erosive processes, or areas of land use constraints, like water streams and fresh water springs areas. The urban expansion process of the municipality happened under the economic influence of the neighboring municipalities, thus the largest expansion vectors comes from the boundary areas with those municipalities, mainly Belo Horizonte.