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In Mexico, and everywhere else, the ecosystems are constantly changing either by natural factors or anthropogenic
activity. Remote sensing has been a key tool to monitoring these changes throughout history and also to understanding
the ecological dynamics. Hence, sustainable development plans have been created in order to improve the decisionmaking
process; thus, this paper analyses deforestation impact in a very important natural resourcing area in Mexico,
considering land cover changes. The study area is located in the coast of Jalisco, Mexico, where deforestation and
fragmentation as well as high speed touristic development have been the causes of enormous biodiversity losses; the
Chamela-Cuixamala Biosphere Reserve is located within this area. It has great species richness and vast endemism. The
exploitation of this biome is widespread all over the country and it has already had an impact in the reserve. The change
detection multi-temporal study uses Landsat satellite imagery during the 1970-2003 time period. Thus, the objective of
change detection analysis is to detect and localize environmental changes through time. The change detection method
consists in producing an image of change likelihood (by post-classification, multivariate alteration detection) and
thresholding it in order to produce the change map. Experimental results confirmed that the patterns of land use and land
cover changes have increased significantly over the last decade. This study also analyzes the deforestation impact on
biodiversity. The analysis validation was carried out using field and statistic data. Spatial-temporal changing range
enables the analysis of the structural and dynamic effects on the ecosystem and it enhances better decision-making and
public environmental policies to decrease or eliminate deforestation, the creation of natural protected areas as a
biodiversity conservation method, and counteracting the global warming phenomena.
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