Over the past four years, the Southern Yucatan Peninsula Region (SYPR) Project has been engaged in an effort to develop a detailed mapping of tropical forest classes in the region of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve (see Turner et al., 2004). The Calakmul Biosphere Reserve (Figure 1) is the largest continuous forest area region in Mexico and an important component of the Meso-American Biological Corridor. It is also a significant cultural resource with an extraordinary range of Mayan sites including Calakmul, Becán and Hormiguero (Figure 2). Unfortunately, the region has been experiencing continuing pressure from development at its margins. A central goal of the SYPR Project has been to understand, model and monitor the intricate relationship between humans and the environment in the general region of this important environmental reserve, and to ultimately gauge the implications of that relationship for biodiversity. An important component of this activity has been the mapping of land cover classes - largely natural seasonally dry tropical forest classes - over time.
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GIS Weekly Magazine
Susan Smith
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Look for the next issue of GIS Weekly Magazine on May 28, 2012.
Each GISWeekly Review delivers to its readers news concerning the latest developments in the GIS industry, along with a selection of other articles that we feel you might find interesting. |
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