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Assessment of Land Use/Land Cover Changes Due to Mining Activity in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Abstract:

The Amazon has 25% terrestrial biodiversity, and its basin generates 16% of the planet's surface clear water. However, mining threatens this region through increasing deforestation. This study evaluated land use/land cover changes (LULC) to identify the impact of mining activities on the sides of the Punino River between 2019 and 2023. The study was divided into three stages: i) Sentinel 2 satellite image acquisition and processing in the Google Earth Engine (GEE), ii) LULC classification by extracting spectral indices and applying the Random Forest algorithm, and iii) calculation of transition arrays in ArcGIS Pro to quantify the spatial variation between classes. The results revealed alterations in the turbidity of the river channel associated with 836 hectares of newly deforested areas and 217 hectares of new mining settlements. This proposal allowed us to identify the effects of mining on the forest and river biomes of the Amazon.