Physical-geographic landscapes of two protected natural areas of coastal wetlands of the Gulf of Mexico

Abstract

Due to their natural productivity, the coastal wetlands of “Pantanos de Centla” and “Laguna de Términos”, in the Gulf of Mexico, form part of the ecological complex of the most important coastal plain of Mesoamerica. The objective of this work is to classify and map, at 1: 250 000 scale, the natural landscapes of these wetlands applying analysis of the natural components of the territory.
The approach is based on an approximation of the complex physical geography that allows a typological arrangement and hierarchical classification of the territory. The resulting map presents the spatial distribution of the physical-geographic landscapes of the terrestrial parts of the “Pantanos de Centla Biosphere Reserve”, the “Laguna de Términos Flora and Fauna Protection Area” and the priority site of the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) “Sabancuy-Chen Kan”. The lack of precise cartography of the natural components of the territory conditioned an extensive field work. In the area, geocomplexes were defined at the level of landscape, land area and sub-land area. As a result, we found, that in the territory there is a predominance of the geo-complexes of fluvio-biogenic plains. The results are important for land use studies and ecosystem service assessments.