Conexões socioecológicas para o desenvolvimento de cidades sustentáveis

Abstract

Currently, urban ecology has focused on urban vacant land, understanding them as places with latent aesthetic, social, and environmental potentials. By studying the qualities and ecosystem services that urban vacant land present, it is evident that they offer opportunities to address the challenges of contemporary cities. Therefore, this study explores strategies for acquiring new green spaces in Mossoró, a city in the brazilian semi-arid region, by examining connectivity patterns in the urban landscape. Maps were modeled to assess the potential conversion of urban vacant land into green areas and the resistance to human movement in the landscape. The multicriteria analysis in a GIS environment was employed for this purpose. The modeling of the areas with the highest suitability in the city considered urban planning, urban density, stage of urban occupation, urban vacant land, land cover, and their conditioning factors, resulting in a map of priority areas (nodes). Suitability was evaluated as very low (0.03 – 0.22), low (0.23 – 0.42), medium (0.43 – 0.61), high (0.62 – 0.80), and very high (0.81 – 1). In the urban footprint, 429 hectares are considered highly suitable for conversion into green spaces. The creation of the resistance surface combined variables such as highways, public lighting, infant, primary, and secondary schools, bus stops, squares, health centers, and hospitals. The resistance surface showed values between 212 and 1000. Areas with more public amenities and services, such as those with high urban planning, offered lower resistance to human flow in the landscape, promoting random walks of humans and other organisms. Connectivity modeling revealed a low habitat availability for flows in the urban landscape of Mossoró, indicating the latent need for the construction of a multifunctional green infrastructure in the city, especially in peripheral neighborhoods. The urban vacant land in these areas have the potential to be explored to reduce socio-spatial fragmentation in Mossoró, and contribute to regional planning focused on building urban resilience.