The Chenes region of Campeche state, Mexico, within the Yucatan Peninsula, is a zone of transition between the predominantly agricultural areas to the north, and the vast tropical moist forests to the south (extending through the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve and into Guatemala). The region includes about seventy villages inhabited mainly by indigenous Maya (typically centuries old, and usually social property "ejidos"), as well as about ten villages settled by non-indigenous Mennonites (usually private properties), established mainly between 1990 and 2010. Through GIS-based interpretation of satellite imagery, land cover change (forest vs. non-forest) was characterized among three village types: Maya, Mennonite, and mixed (Maya villages that rent land to Mennonites).
This study serves two purposes: 1. Compare land cover change detection methods; 2. Compare land cover change among village types. It was hypothesized that, among the methods attempted (pre-processed 250-meter-resolution North American Land Cover data; unsupervised classification of 30-meter-resolution LANDSAT imagery; supervised classification of LANDSAT imagery), supervised classification would produce the most reliable figures. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that Mennonite village territories would undergo a higher degree of forest-to-non-forest conversion across the imagery dates (2000 to 2010).
