The emergence of spontaneous occupations and land misuse, as well as the
inadequate management of water resources, result in numerous problems for the
environment and people who live and depend directly or indirectly on it. The research
aimed to identify and analyze the spatial and temporal dynamics of land use and land
cover changes along the Urumari stream, located in the city of Santarém, Pará,
between 1987 and 2018, using digital processing techniques. images and remote
sensing. In addition, it sought to investigate the perception of older residents residing
along the stream about the possible local processes of environmental degradation,
respecting the timeline and comparing this perception with data acquired through
geotechnologies. The remote sensing method included on-site visits to strategic points
of the main course of the Urumari stream, classification supervised by the Maximum
Likelihood algorithm, Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 8 OLI satellite images, and community
interviews. Remote sensing data analysis was performed using the QGIS software and
its complements. The data collection method for the environmental perception of older
residents was based on the Problem-Centered Interview technique, and for the
analysis of the interviews, the Collective Subject Discourse (CSD) technique was used.
The remote sensing results show the loss of dense vegetation and the considerable
increase of the built-up or exposed soil areas. The qualitative data obtained from 31
interviews totaling 27 Central Ideas (IC) and respective speeches. The comparison
between the data acquired with the geotechnologies and the perception of the older
residents showed the investigated perceptions corroborated the data presented in the
georeferencing. Both techniques highlight that, over the last three decades, the studied
environment underwent severe changes in its fauna, flora, water flow, as well as in its
urban landscape. Thus, we concluded the studied environment has suffered deep
human intervention in the last 31 years, without any kind of repair of native vegetation.
Finally, it was observed that the investigated environment requires compliance with
environmental laws, recovery of degraded areas and, mainly, greater action by the
public power.
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