As a group the Ecuador projects examine pattern and rate of land conversion, primarily, deforestation and agricultural extensification in the northern Oriente, a frontier environment at the headwaters of the Amazon Basin, and the associated socio-economic, demographic, biophysical, and geographic drivers of change. The goals of the first NASA grant were to identify socio-economic and demographic (SED) determinants of land use and land cover change (LULCC) in the northern Oriente of Ecuador by developing a satellite image time-series and a longitudinal socio-economic and demographic survey (1990 and 1999) linked to other geospatial data. In the second and current NASA grant multi-level models and cellular automata (CA) models are utilized to assess the rate, pattern, and mechanisms of forest conversion to agricultural and urban land uses. Scale dependent drivers of land cover and land use dynamics are combined with biophysical and geographic data. In a grant from NIH, a comparison of land use practices between indigenous groups and colonists in the northern Oriente of Ecuador is addressed through a satellite image time-series and an ethnographic, socio-economic, and demographic survey conducted in 2001 and linked to the longitudinal survey of colonists (1990 and 1999) and a community survey completed in 2000. Finally, through a grant from the Mellon Foundation, urban influences are used to inform CA models for predictive LULCC over time. These influences are quantified through data from a community survey, from 2000, that is linked to spatial point locations for each community. The CA models identify likely trends in LULCC from a beginning time period forward.
