Comparative analysis of the annual changes of land coverage of the Cienaga de las Macanas wetland

Keywords: wetland, remote sensing, Panama
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 46

Abstract

“Ciénaga de las Macanas” is the only and largest permanent freshwater wetland located in the central provinces of Panama, with a protected area of approximately 867 ha. To the west it borders the Santa María river, which is one of the most important water resources in the country. The protected area has been affected by extreme events such as droughts caused by the El Niño phenomenon or extreme rains causing floods. And although the body of water is important for the ecosystem and the inhabitants of the area, there are no basic hydrological studies that allow us to know its water needs, which increases its vulnerability. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the behavior of the surface of the different land covers and the water body in the protected area, using satellite images from the LANDSAT mission. The approach is to extract wetland area using supervised classification method of the free software QGIS. It is also defined how the main known inputs, precipitation and river flow, has affected the flooded area of the wetland during the last years. The results indicate the annual average of flooded area, during 1997 to 2002, around 500 ha, while during 2015 to 2020, between 200 to 500 ha, increasing towards the year 2020. The accumulated annual precipitation does not seem to have a direct relationship with the annual behavior of the flooded area, while the upstream flow of the Santa María river seems to show an important influence.