The influence of urban expansion in the socio-economic, demographic, and environmental indicators in the City of Arapiraca-Alagoas, Brazil

This study evaluated the influence of the urban expansion in the socio-economic, demographic and environmental indicators in the City of Arapiraca, Brazil, based on orbital products and multivariate analysis. It was used the remote data (Land Use and Land Cover – LULC, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, and Land Surface Temperature) between 1985 and 2017 from Landsat sensors, followed by Climatologies at High Resolution product for the Earth's Land Surface Areas (CHELSA) data (temperature and rainfall), population density, per capita income, Human Development Index (HDI), and tobacco production. It was applied the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on joint data. Based on PCA results, appointed that two PC corresponds to 100% of the variance explained. The socio-economic variables (population and population density and HDI) compose the PC1, with 75.86% of the variance explained. The environmental variables (rainfall, temperature, and NDVI) compose the PC2, with 24.14% of the variance explained. Land Use Land Cover classes showed a substantial change over 30 years in agriculture and pasture classes areas of 85.93%, while the urban infrastructure jumped to 349.92% (from 8.62 km2 to 30.16 km2). This decline is associated with reducing tobacco cultivation, and government programs have accentuated environmental degradation via urbanization in recent decades.