Análisis multitemporal del espejo de agua del humedal El Castillo, municipio de Barrancabermeja, Santander, Colombia

Abstract

The wetland “El Castillo” located in the districts 1 and 4 of Barrancabermeja municipality, through the years has undergone changes in its water surface, induced by natural processes like flooding and vegetal succession; as well as anthropogenic factors such as wastewater discharges, deforestation and migration processes, considered as severe disturbances. For the research development, aerial photography information of the site was collected from Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi IGAC. The information collected corresponds to the years of 1976, 1984, 1988, 1992 y 2004, with the purpose of analyzing the dynamics of wetland water surface in function of time using photo interpretation techniques, digital image processing and geographic information system (GIS). In order to determine the area of the water surface in the aerial photographs, geometric correction was performed from the checkpoints, by reference to the IGAC´ ortho photography of the municipality of Barrancabermeja in 2009. Geographic processing of these polygons of the water surface area was needed in order to establish its dynamics. Analyzing the temporal evolution of the surface of the “El Castillo” wetland, a quadratic regression model fits with a R2 = 0.972. However, this spatial variation is governed by natural and anthropogenic processes.