Vegetation cover and land use around streams in a conservation unit in the Atlantic forest, Pernambuco, Brazil

Fragments of the Atlantic Forest in secondary succession and with the presence of agricultural crops, are also home to stream protection areas and are places where initiatives such as the establishment of conservation units (CU) have been implemented. Identifying the different land covers and land uses within these areas is imperative for maintaining the forest, enhancing family farming and local and regional water sustainability. The aims of this research were (i) to identify the different vegetation covers and land uses in the surroundings of streams located within a CU in the Atlantic Rainforest of Pernambuco, NE Brazil; and (ii) test which of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index-NDVI or Enhanced Vegetation Index -EVI vegetation indices were the most effective for characterizing different vegetation covers. It was possible to verify two general categories of vegetation cover and land use: (i) dense ombrophilous Atlantic forest, with higher average NDVI (0.856) and EVI (0.535) in forest fragments with productive backyards of family farming and the polycultivation of species of agricultural interest; and (ii) soil with small sugarcane monoculture, with average NDVI (0.763) and EVI (0.507) corresponding to the area of capoeira 3 in the early stages of regeneration. The EVI indicated greater correspondence with the findings of the field activities, better differentiating the dense forest fragments from the other targets, such as agricultural crops and exposed soil. We found that there are fragments of dense Atlantic ombrophilous forest with a tendency for the NDVI and EVI vegetation indices to increase in three of the four soils around the streams surveyed, despite the presence of small-scale family farming in these areas.