CHANGES IN SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL DYNAMICS OF THE URBANIZATION OF BARBACENA MUNICIPALITY (MG) FOR THE PERIOD OF 1985-2018

Abstract

The analysis of urban expansion is of fundamental importance for geographic studies and for the identification of environmental, economic and social dynamics. Though, the rapid growth of cities in Brazil and in the world over the past decades has led to the emergence of several challenges for the government and also for urban populations. In this context, this article’s main objective is to analyze the urban growth of the Barbacena municipality in Minas Gerais state and its implications for the environment, from the land use and land cover (LULC) data derived from MapBiomas, collection 4.1, obtained from the Google Engine platform and inserted in the SPRING 5.6 and Arcgis 10.1 software, and demographic censuses, in the years 1980, 1991, 1996, 2000 and 2010, from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). From the spatial analysis of the data, it can be seen that the urban spot of the Barbacena municipality occurs preferentially in the southeast axis and in the northern portion of the study area, mainly due to the economic relations between neighboring municipalities, physical-geological factors and social-human relations interventional measures, such as the construction of highways and industrial location. The spatial analysis indicates that the urban expansion in 34 years (1985 to 2018) was approximately 9 km², replacing areas of forest, savanna and planted vegetation in 0.41 km², pasture and agriculture areas in 8.37 km² and other areas in 0.07 km². Still, demographic census analyzes indicate that there was a population growth from 86,391 thousand inhabitants in 1980 to 126,284 thousand inhabitants in 2010.