Land-use change in the Sierra Madre del Sur between 2000 and 2017. The case of the community of Progreso Hidalgo, municipality of Villa Guerrero, Estado de México

In Mexico, the Physiographic Province of Sierra Madre del Sur has environmental, geographic and socio-cultural complexity and heterogeneity, particular qualities from the rest of the Mexican physiographic provinces, however, unsustainable human activities, such as traditional agriculture, are causing land-use changes. Processes and activities that cause land-use changes in the Community of Progreso Hidalgo, Villa Guerrero, Estado de México were identified and analyzed with satellite images from the years 2000 and 2007, application of tools of geographic information systems, remote sensing, supervised classification, direct observation, georeferencing and application of a questionnaire to 100% of the peasant families. The categories of analysis are: tropical deciduous forests, water storage, traditional agriculture, commercialized technified agriculture and human settlements. The results show that tropical deciduous forests and traditional agriculture has losses of 6,751 ha and 1,249 ha, respectively, while water storage and human settlements had increases (1,171 ha and 1,745 ha). From 2005, some areas used for traditional agriculture have been replaced by commercialized technified agriculture (5,084 ha). If this trend continues, in the next five years, the community’s agricultural area will be occupied with greenhouse infrastructure