Abstract

The main territorial transformations in the central valley of Chile are associated with urbanization processes, leaving environmentally important areas susceptible. This work aims to determine the types of changes in natural protected areas (npas) of the central zone, establishing the main ones and explaining each one of them. The methodology is based on a study of changes in land use/cover between 2002 and 2015 through photointerpretation. To establish the typologies, a confusion matrix that characterizes each of the study units was developed. Based on the above, a relationship between urban infrastructure and npas was established. Among the main conclusions is that the greatest impact on the npas is caused by urban typology stands out, exerting greater pressure with the advance of time. There is also a permeability in urban-rural-natural spaces, which makes it necessary to think of new functional typologies that account for these new spaces. In summary, these dynamic spaces play a role within an evolving context.