Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Madrid: Siruela. 109 pp. ISBN 978-84-18708-54-1.

Changes in land use threaten the sustainability of the planet, as these undermine the ability of global ecosystems to sustain food production, maintain forest and freshwater resources, and regulate climate and air quality. This unfavorable scenario for the food system demands efficient land-use allocation. To this end, it is essential for the actors in the territories to have a clear understanding of the gains and losses associated with the various land-use changes. In line with the above, the present work analyzed the transitions in land use change in the state of Puebla that occurred from 1980 to 2016, to understand the spatial dynamics and identify the most important patterns of land-use change that characterize this territory. To this end, we processed the cartographic information contained in the Land and Vegetation Use Charts, Series I, II, III, IV, V, and VI, issued by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico. From the cartographic information obtained, we delimited and calculated the area occupied by the state and its economic regions, differentiating the area of different types of natural vegetation and other land uses (this procedure was carried out for the six series). The values of the area of the different land uses were used to perform several calculations that allowed us to analyze the changes in the original land uses and their transitions, as well as calculate the intensity of agricultural land-use change (ICSA, after its name in Spanish). The results obtained indicate that Puebla has undergone a 21% decrease in its natural vegetation cover over the past 36 years, which is mainly explained by the conversion of forest area to agricultural activities or turning into disturbed vegetation. The regions with the heaviest forest losses are the Mixteca, the Sierra Norte, and Atlixco-Valle de Matamoros. In general, the state displays important spatial dynamics. In net terms, considering the losses and gains in its area, the most expanded land uses were, in order of magnitude: urban (1523%), bare soil (146%), and water bodies (83%). In contrast, those that declined in area were temperate and tropical forests, with losses in exceess of 30%. On the other hand, there have been transitions in land-use change in about one-third of the state's surface area. In this way, 47 transitions were identified, with the most important losses for the magnitude of the loss in area are pastures and natural grasslands, with 31% and 18% of their area, respectively, converted to agriculture, in addition to the conversion of forests to disturbed vegetation, with the former losing 21% of its original area in this transition. With regard to the behavior of land use by economic region, the land-use maps show that the transition from livestock to agricultural use has prevailed in the northern part of the state; in the central-western part, from agricultural to urban use; in the southwest, from forest to disturbed vegetation; and in the southeast region, from forest to livestock use. In the particular case of the area covered by agriculture, ICSA values indicate that the Angelopolis and Atlixco regions have experienced a trend to the conversion from this use to urban development; in contrast, the Tehuacán-Sierra Negra and Serdán-Valles Centrales regions show an increasing trend of conversion to agriculture. Finally, it is concluded that the different changes of land use in Puebla are highly influenced by the proximity to urban areas, where the regions that are farthest away from the main cities maintain the greatest dynamism of agricultural and livestock activities. If the current trend of urban growth and agricultural activities continue, these can exacerbate unsustainable land uses. These findings should be considered in government development plans and programs to optimize land use in the state of Puebla.

Las causas que limitan el desarrollo de las comunidades pueden ser estudiadas desde diferentes ámbitos, sociales, políticos y económicos. Las inconsistencias en los diseños constructivos y en la planeación territorial, pueden generar escenarios de riesgos que provocan perturbaciones ambientales. El presente artículo, realiza una contribución en la primera fase de la gestión local del riesgo para el Municipio de Malinalco, Estado de México. Específicamente se determina la susceptibilidad a la ocurrencia de deslizamientos, en un contexto geográfico donde en los últimos 10 años ocurrieron al menos 36 deslizamientos. Se empleó la metodología sugerida por Mora y Vahrson, donde se involucran factores condicionantes como la pendiente del terreno, la litología y la humedad; así como los factores desencadenantes, precipitaciones y sismicidad. A partir del conocimiento físico del territorio y en especial del inventario de deslizamientos realizados, se identifica una alta correspondencia espacial entre el 91.6% de los deslizamientos y las vialidades. De esta forma, se decide incluir la zonación del uso del suelo y vegetación en el álgebra de mapas realizado en SIG. La cartografía obtenida, constituye una herramienta actualizada para la gestión de riesgo por deslizamientos en el municipio Malinalco. Se definen áreas prioritarias para realizar estudios detallados de estimaciones de coeficiente de estabilidad en taludes de carreteras, y en los casos que se justifique se podrían sugerir medidas de reforzamientos. Además, se pueden identificar las comunidades ubicadas en los niveles de susceptibilidad medio, alto y muy alto; para de esta forma planear los diseños de alerta temprana que más se ajusten a la realidad física y social. El resultado obtenido, constituye un insumo cartográfico relevante en el ámbito de la planeación territorial futura del municipio, en aras de alcanzar actividades socio económicas coherentes con las condiciones físicas del territorio.

Forest landscape structure comprises a mosaic of natural and human-modified units, which when well depicted, may help to plan and implement forest management policies, which commonly assume territorial homogeneity. Usually, forest policies lack the use of spatial tools that can help scale up conservation program in heterogeneous forested landscapes. This paper applied a conceptual-methodological framework as baseline to guide regional strategies and scale-up community collective action based on local forestry ejidos and communities. The study case was conducted in the Mixteca Alta, a forestry region in Oaxaca, Mexico, where common property prevails. Zoning was made based on biophysical, social, and forest management criteria. A total of 97 communities were surveyed and the region was disaggregated into five zones based on precipitation, watersheds, community forest management experience and level of regional collective action. Each zone was recognized as having different forestry potentials and intervention needs, ranging from restoration to timber and non-timber product management. This zoning proved the potential to guide forest projects and promote joint regional forest development. The potential use of landscape zoning was discussed in the light of the current need for scale-up forest policies.

The Yucatan Peninsula (YP) is home to 32% of tropical forests of Mexico. Consequently, this area has a high cloudiness throughout the year, which represents a particular challenge for any mid- and long-term plant monitoring study based on satellite-image time series. This paper reports the results of a trend classification analysis of a time series (11 Landsat-7 ETM+ and 150 Landsat 8 OLI images) of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) by soil and vegetation types in the eastern region of Escarcega, Campeche (YP) from 2014 to 2020. We applied the bfast01 algorithm to classify pixels according to linear trends, either global (a line with a positive or negative slope through the study period) or local (two linear segments, each with a positive or negative slope). The analysis reveals that most of the study region has NDVI values with global linear trends (browning:  47%; greening:  15.39%) and, to a lesser degree, local linear trends (delayed browning: 20.66%;  browning to greening:  6.04%; delayed greening: 5.26%; greening to browning: 3.88%) We consider that generalized greening (which pools the greening, delayed greening, and browning to greening classes) and generalized browning (which pools the browning, delayed browning, and greening to browning classes) can be interpreted as dynamics with significant signs of recovery and degradation of the NDVI, respectively. These dynamics were identified mainly in the semi-evergreen medium tropical forest (generalized greening:  10.26%; generalized browning: 25.43%), semi-evergreen low thorny tropical forest (7.66 and 21.76) and the secondary tree vegetation of the medium tropical forest (3.26 and 10.93). The largest areas with any kind of linear local trend were identified in 2017 and 2018.

The implicit weighting in the standardization of aggregate variables generates distorted composite indices (CI). This distortion is associated with the uneven range of each distribution, the maximum and minimum values different from one variable to another and the asymmetry of each of them. The control of the implicit weighting is, until today, a pending issue. All the standardizations reviewed in this research counteract the influence of implicit weighting only partially. The balanced standardization proposed in this study achieves the triple purpose of simultaneously matching ranges between variables, matching the maximum and minimum between them, and controlling the asymmetry in each distribution. This new procedure neutralizes the weighting implicit in the cross-sectional or longitudinal aggregation of variables. The variables of the educational backwardness in the states of Mexico illustrate this procedure. The methodological proposal of this research is applicable to any subject where the space-time standardization is necessary.

. In Mexico, mining has left many mine tailings, toxic and unstable waste materials that can be deposited and contained by structures called tailings dams. Even so, these materials are found in the open pit and can be washed away by rain or dispersed by the wind. The identification of tailings is a starting point for developing mitigation strategies. In the area of Huautla, Morelos, mining activity was abruptly abandoned without leaving an accurate record of such tailings. The objective of this study was to identify these tailings deposits and abandoned mines in that area. To this end, documents and cartography were reviewed, photo-interpretation and classification of remote sensing images were carried out, as well as field visits and consultations with local people. In this way, 19 mines were located, five sites known as tailings deposits, three contained by tailings dams (two in Los Molinos and one in Las Presas) and two without containment (Tlalchichilpa and Huautla). In addition, twelve potential tailings deposits were found. The combination of these strategies proved to be the most adequate to identify the jales and describe their changes through time.