PHYSICAL FACTORS OF THE LANDSCAPE WHICH CONDITION SPONTANEOUS FOREST RESTORATION

Intense and constant anthropic interventions transform extensive forest landscapes into mosaics of disturbed or degraded ecosystems. These ecosystems can restore themselves spontaneously, depending on the attributes offered by the physical environment and their capacity for resilience. This study’s objectives were the identification of plant formations in a conservation unit and the variables of the physical environment which favor the spontaneous restoration processes of the landscape. These variables were divided into classes using ArcGIS 10 and analyzed through the Principal Component Analysis. The concave curvature of the terrain was the physical factor which best contributed to the formation of a secondary forest in medium and advanced stages of succession, indicating that curvature is the determining factor for the spontaneous restoration of the landscape.