Transformações ocorridas no parque da Escola Superior de Agricultura" Luiz de Queiroz" - (ESALQ-USP) em Piracicaba - SP, ao longo dos anos

Abstract

In the present study, vertical aerial photographs and floristic surveys from different times were used to assess the transformation on plant masses of the Park of the Escola Superior de Agricultura" Luiz de Queiroz" (ESALQ), Universidade of São Paulo (USP), in Piracicaba - SP - Brazil. The park, comprised of 150.000 m², was built in the english landscape style, near 1907, and has had too much uncontrolled growth of arboreal/ shrubby masses ever since, as determined by the analysis of vertical aerial photographs taken in 1945. In the large seal landscape projects it takes approximately twenty years for the plant mass to reach its peak. The area of the 24 existent masses in the Park was calculated at different years and compared, using software IDRISI, vertical aerial photographs from 1945, 1962, 1969, 1973, 1993, and 1995, as well as the original project of the Park. From 1945 to 1995, the arboreal increment was of 36.655 m², practically doubling the total area of arboreal covering. In the original project of the ESALQ's Park, ten lines of view were planned. In 1995, six of those lines were obstructed. Four of them can be cleared through simple management practices. Unfortunately, the others are no longer liable to desobstruction. The study of the floristic surveys of the arboreal/shrubby masses (masses number 1 to 22), carried out in the park in the years of 1965 and 1991, were typed in the software Access. The floristic survey of 1965 shows that the park was 444 made up of arboreal/shrubby individuals, which increased to 2.904 in the floristic survey in 1991. The presented facts indicate the need of an urgent management of the masses of the ESALQ's Park, to avoid further uncharacterization.