Proximate and Underlying Deforestation Causes in a Tropical Basin through Specialized Consultation and Spatial Logistic Regression Modeling

The present study focuses on identifying and describing the possible proximate and underlying causes of deforestation and its factors using the combination of two techniques: (1) specialized consultation and (2) spatial logistic regression modeling. These techniques were implemented to characterize the deforestation process qualitatively and quantitatively, and then to graphically represent the deforestation process from a temporal and spatial point of view. The study area is the North Pacific Basin, Mexico, from 2002 to 2014. The map difference technique was used to obtain deforestation using the land-use and vegetation maps. A survey was carried out to identify the possible proximate and underlying causes of deforestation, with the aid of 44 specialized government officials, researchers, and people who live in the surrounding deforested areas. The results indicated total deforestation of 3938.77 km(2) in the study area. The most important proximate deforestation causes were agricultural expansion (53.42%), infrastructure extension (20.21%), and wood extraction (16.17%), and the most important underlying causes were demographic factors (34.85%), economics factors (29.26%), and policy and institutional factors (22.59%). Based on the spatial logistic regression model, the factors with the highest statistical significance were forestry productivity, the slope, the altitude, the distance from population centers with fewer than 2500 inhabitants, the distance from farming areas, and the distance from natural protected areas.

Automated summary

The study analyzes the causes of deforestation in the North Pacific Basin, Mexico from 2002 to 2014, using a combination of specialized consultation and spatial logistic regression modeling. The results showed that agricultural expansion, infrastructure extension, wood extraction were the main proximate causes, while demographic factors, economics factors, and policy and institutional factors were the main underlying causes. The spatial logistic regression model highlighted forestry productivity, slope, altitude, distance from population centers, farming areas, and natural protected areas as significant factors influencing deforestation.