Comprehensive Framework for Analysing the Intensity of Land Use and Land Cover Change in Continental Ecuadorian Biosphere Reserves

The conventional methods of land use and land cover (LULC) analysis are frequently based on crosstabulation matrices. However, this analysis becomes complex when including sites with multiple management zones and categories at different time points. This is challenging regarding data processing and the presentation of numerous results. We transformed the graphical representation of conventional Intensity Analysis to assess and compare the intensity and magnitude of LULC changes in six Continental Ecuadorian Biosphere Reserves at three levels: interval, category, and transition, and at three time intervals. A dimension reduction strategy was used to convert multiple bar charts into three composite heat maps. The results confirm the global conservation effectiveness in the core zones among the biosphere reserves with less than 10% change, but worrisome dynamics were detected in buffers and transitions with a change of up to 10% for all periods. Deforestation and agriculture were detected as the most relevant land processes. This work highlights the dimension reduction by summarizing 17, 51, and 312 bar charts from conventional Intensity Analysis in three composite heat maps, one for each level of analysis. Systematic suspicious transitions occurred in the water body category because of its dynamics and misclassification in LULC maps.