Análisis y modelación de los procesos de deforestación: un caso de estudio en la cuenca del río Coyuquilla, Guerrero, México

Overall map accuracy was 71%, 73% and 75% for 1986, 2000 and 2011 respectively. During the period 1986-2000, a loss of 16% of the forest cover that mainly affected the dry tropical forest with an annual deforestation rate of -3.7% was observed. During the period 2000-2011, a loss of 22% of forest cover was observed and oak forest was the cover with the highest deforestation rate (-5.54%). These results are consistent with previous studies in the region. The increase of induced pasture was the main cause of the loss of forest cover. The elevation, distance to roads, distance to human settlements and the slope were important factors to explain deforestation in the three forest types and the two periods analyzed. The assessment of probabilistic models through the computing of the area under the ROC curve index gives index values between 0.61 and 0.92. These results are well above a random model and show that the models were able to identify the most likely to LUCC areas for the next period (2000-2011) for the eight analyzed transitions. Therefore, the model presents a reasonable performance in identifying the forest areas more likely to be cleared. However, in order to understand the processes of changes and their causes, the statistical approach must be complemented by a study based on a social science approach.