History of Land Cover Change on Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos

Islands are particularly vulnerable to the effects of land cover change due to their limited size and remoteness. This study analyzes vegetation cover change in the agricultural area of Santa Cruz (Galapagos Archipelago) between 1961 and 2018. To reconstruct multitemporal land cover change from existing land cover products, a multisource data integration procedure was followed to reduce imprecision and inconsistencies that may result from the comparison of heterogeneous datasets. The conversion of native forests and grasslands into agricultural land was the principal land cover change in the non-protected area. In 1961, about 94% of the non-protected area was still covered by native vegetation, whereas this had decreased to only 7% in 2018. Most of the agricultural expansion took place in the 1960s and 1970s, and it created an anthropogenic landscape where 67% of the area is covered by agricultural land and 26% by invasive species. Early clearance of native vegetation took place in the more accessible—less rugged—areas with deeper-than-average and well-drained soils. The first wave of settlement consisted of large and isolated farmsteads, with 19% of the farms being larger than 100 ha and specializing in diary and meat production. Over the period of 1961–1987, the number of farms doubled from less than 100 to more than 200, while the average farm size decreased from 90 to 60 ha/farmstead. Due to labor constraints in the agricultural sector, these farms opted for less labor-intensive activities such as livestock farming. New farms (popping up in the 1990s and 2000s) are generally small in size, with <5 ha per farmstead, and settled in areas with less favorable biophysical conditions and lower accessibility to markets. From the 1990s onwards, the surge of alternative income opportunities in the tourism and travel-related sector reduced pressure on the natural resources in the non-protected area.