NATIVE VEGETATION MAPPING IN GOIÁS STATE AND IN THE FEDERAL DISTRICT ANTHROPIZED AREAS USING GEOSTATISTICS - DOI 10.5216/bgg.v33i1.23640

Abstract

The great diversity of animal species and plants is associated with the environment diversity. While the Amazonor Atlantic Forest vertical stratification provides many opportunities for species establishment, in Cerrado thespatial heterogeneity seems to be a determining factor for the occurrence of a varied number of species. Thecurrently computational resources available promote significant gains for geographical research. This studyaimed to evaluate geostatistics potential to elaborate an original native vegetation map of Goias State andof the Federal District. To understand the spatial variation, the vegetation variable was analyzed along withthree others (soil, altitude, and annual precipitation). The Medium Error Standard values obtained in the CrossValidation Prediction Error and in the Validation were low. The spherical model and the cokriging interpolatordemonstrated good results in the prediction process. The biggest prediction errors are situated at the edges ofthe study area and/or close to areas with lower point density related to the native vegetation (e.g. South andSoutheast Goias) or with lack of information (e.g. Atlantic Forest biome portion in Goias).