STRUCTURAL AND SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF THE ARBORING COMPONENT AS A TOURIST LANDSCAPE ELEMENT

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to investigate of the tree-shrub composition of road afforestation and public squares in the cities of São Joaquim, Urubici and Urupema, in the state of Santa Catarina. A visual assessment was carried out applying the Degree of Attention to Urban Trees (GAAU), a methodology developed to carry out the present work. Afforestation diversity indexes were determined. In total, 899 tree-shrub components were cataloged, distributed in 57 different species, presents in the three studied areas. There was a higher
frequency in the “Low” degree of attention, 93.0% for Urupema, 87.7% Urubici and 74.2% São Joaquim, followed by the “Medium” degree of attention with 6.9%, 11.8 % and 25.1% following the same order of cities presented above. The lowest values found belong to the “High” degree of attention, found only in two of the three studied cities, being São Joaquim with 0.6% and Urubici with 0.4%. No individuals were found to justify the “Priority” level of attention. The diversity indexes showed that from eight streets evaluated, seven has unsatisfactory diversity (2.45), being new planting and enrichment with new native species from the region necessary.