Environmental Quality in Urban Forests in Campinas – São Paulo State/Brazil

The process of ecosystem fragmentation causes three types of changes in the ecosystem: changes of abiotic, direct biotic and indirect biotic nature. Among these changes, some of them are the microclimatic alterations, edge effect, decrease of the gene flow and losses of biodiversity, among others. In this way, the present study aimed to evaluate the environmental quality of forest remnants in a highly urbanized area through environmental indicators and landscape metrics, such as total area, circularity index, shape of forest fragments, nuclear area, connectivity between them, use and occupation around and distance from the nearest neighbor. The indicators were evaluated according to the methodologies established in the literature and grouped into an index to determine the environmental quality of each forest remnant. The index consisted of the sum of the weighted values for each indicator, according to its classification. The results indicate that most forest remnants evaluated in the study area present medium environmental quality, which demonstrates the degree of edge effect to which they are submitted, and this emphasizes the need for appropriate management actions in these areas, in order to soften such external pressures and ensure long-term sustainability. In addition, it was also identified that the metrics related to the area are essentially important for the determination of the environmental quality of forest remnants.