Urban socio-ecological dynamics: applying the urban-rural gradient approach in a high Andean city

ABSTRACT

The urban-rural dichotomy and the simple cause-effect relationship do not allow establishing specific criteria for territorial management from a socio-ecological perspective. The gradient approach could be a powerful tool to understand urban socio-ecological dynamics. This research applied a methodological protocol to obtain urban-rural gradients while considering the specific characteristics of a mid-size Andean city. To achieve this goal, a mixed classification process was applied to a Landsat 8 image. Subsequently, a factor analysis (FA) grouped 25 urbanisation variables. Finally, we applied agglomerative hierarchical clustering.

FA established four factors that explained (72%) of the urbanisation metrics’ variation. From this information, we obtained factor maps and a gradient map. The resulting map differentiated six gradients that contrast with the city’s territorial planning based on the urban-rural dichotomy. This study is a starting point to apply the gradient approach in land-use management and urban ecology planning for Andean cities.

KEYWORDS:

• Andean cities
• urban dichotomy
• urban management
• urban-rural gradient
• multivariate analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica [CITEHS].