Análisis del crecimiento urbano y sus implicaciones ambientales en el municipio de Pacho – Cundinamarca, entre 1990 y 2016

Abstract

Planet Earth is being urbanized more and more rapidly [1], proof of this is that by 2018, around 55% of the world population lived in the urban areas of their territories [2], hoping that this figure will increase to 70% by 2050 [3]. However, because of said growth, there is also an increase of approximately 70% of global carbon emissions and more than 60% in the demand for the use of resources [1]. For this reason, although urban development is a process that encourages and drives the socioeconomic and cultural sectors, its evolution brings repercussions with it, the environment being more damaged; these are being represented in environmental impacts that result in consequences. In accordance with the above, this document describes an investigation that was carried out in the main urban area of the municipality of Pacho in the department of Cundinamarca, whose main objective was the analysis of the urban sprawl process and its environmental implications. For the development of the project, an initial diagnosis was made on the information available in the study area; then to establish the pattern of urban sprawl, a multi-time study was carried out during the period between 1990 - 2016 through aerial photographs from the years 1993, 1998, 2005 and an orthophotomosaic from 2016, taking the years 1943 and 1984 as precedents. Subsequently, to verify land occupation patterns, an analysis of land use was carried out by counting scattered dwellings, land uses found in the field, and construction volumes; and finally the environmental implications generated by the urban sprawl phenomenon were determined in a cause / effect matrix. It was found that the municipality of Pacho since 1998 has presented a growth trend towards the north of the urban perimeter, mainly due to the compaction of dispersed housing units located in this area, which in turn generate direct effects on the soil component due to the change in its use. It is highlighted that the work carried out serves as a support tool in decision-making related to the territorial ordering of the municipality.