Elaboración de un índice de calidad ambiental ICA, enfocado al sector urbano de la ciudad de Cuenca utilizando teledetección y análisis espacial

Abstract

Environmental quality deterioration is an increasing global problem, especially in cities with high industrial development and demographic growth, demanding the establishment of public policies that confront these issues. Data generation is required to represent the environmental reality of a place, for which environmental quality index can be applied. The current research aims for the construction of Landsat 8 imagery derived indicators along with secondary information of Cuenca for 2014 and 2015. Eight indicators were obtained – normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), leaf water content index (LWCI), normalized difference soil index (NSI), soil adjust vegetation transformed index (TSAVI), surface temperature (TS), nitrogen dioxide and ozone concentrations, and noise levels – and synthetized in environmental quality indexes adjusted to hexagonal cells, generated with two methodologies: spatial multiple criteria analysis and principal components analysis. This last technic was selected as the most suitable to represent the city, clustering thriving environmental quality in areas with high humidity and vegetation indexes, as well as low surface temperatures, and minor atmospheric pollution; and in degraded regions with heat island effect, high nitrogen dioxide concentrations, bare soil and low humidity, and larger constructed areas, that require priority intervention from the urban environmental planning entities. Key words: Remote sensing, environmental quality index, atmospheric pollutants, multiple criteria analysis, principal components analysis, vegetation index.