Geomorphology, land use, and environmental impacts in a densely populated urban catchment of Costa Rica

 

Gorde:
Xehetasun bibliografikoak
Egileak: Quesada Román, Adolfo, Castro Chacón, José Pablo, Feoli Boraschi, Sergio
Formatua: artículo original
Argitaratze data:2021
Deskribapena:The Torres River is one of the most urbanized catchments in Costa Rica, with only 46.67 km2 and approximately 50% of its area have urban land uses comprising nearly 13% of the national population. The quick rural-urban transition during the last century has had intense environmental impacts along the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM) of Costa Rica. We performed a geomorphology map of the Torres River catchment using photointerpretation and digitization processes. We used aerial photographs, contour lines every 5 m, digital elevation models, slope, and hillshade models as a basis. We identified eleven endogenic, fluvial accumulative and erosional, as well as anthropogenic exogenic landforms. The results show that 37% of the catchment is made up of flat lands, 31% corresponds to valley slopes, 22% to mountain slopes, and 6% to valley bottoms. The remaining 4% of the area consists of anthropogenic landforms such as deposits, terraces, quarries, escarpments, and old quarries. Land uses are controlled by the determined landforms and explain the urban growth and subsequent environmental impacts such as erosion, water pollution, and natural hazards occurrence on the catchment. This geomorphological assessment can be implemented for exhaustive morphogenetic maps, landform evolution studies, natural risks, environmental, and land use mapping.
Herria:Kérwá
Erakundea:Universidad de Costa Rica
Repositorio:Kérwá
Hizkuntza:Inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:kerwa.ucr.ac.cr:10669/87069
Sarrera elektronikoa:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0895981121004065
https://hdl.handle.net/10669/87069
Gako-hitza:Geomorphology
Torres river
Urban geomorphology
GAM
Environmental impact
Urban management