*The Floristic-Holistic Method for Arid, Semiarid, and Subhumid Areas: A Tool… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106226*


#### *Floristic Diversity – Biology and Conservation*


*The Floristic-Holistic Method for Arid, Semiarid, and Subhumid Areas: A Tool… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106226*



## *The Floristic-Holistic Method for Arid, Semiarid, and Subhumid Areas: A Tool… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106226*


**Table 2.**

 *Specific Quality Index (SQI) of the most common species in the surveyed areas.*

*The Floristic-Holistic Method for Arid, Semiarid, and Subhumid Areas: A Tool… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106226*


#### **Table 3.**

*Forage availability in the different ecological areas. To see the equivalence in phytogeographic areas or bioclimatic entities, see Table 1.*

established in similar environments in other parts of the world [14], and the evaluation of different productive situations in different environments [2–4], see **Table 1**.

Receptivity Estimate: It is calculated from the determination of the forage productivity and the intensity or degree of use, which is called the Use Factor (UF) of each ecological area [15]. The INTA Trelew carried out censuses with forage harvest in different ecological areas, from which it determined different linear regression models of the forage availability of herbaceous and 20% woody forage (FAHWF 20%) [2–4], See **Table 3**.

Recommended load: For the analysis, the measured pastoral value is used to estimate forage availability, and to determine the recommended load, the corresponding Use Factor (UF) of the same was calculated and the forage to be hypothetically consumed by the cattle is computed and divided by 300 kilos of dry matter per year (KgMS/year), which consumes 1 Ovine Livestock Unit (OLU or UGO in Spanish by "Unidad Ganadera Ovina"), which corresponds to a capon of the Merino breed of 40 kg of live weight. On the other hand, you can take the Equivalent Patagonic Sheep (EPS or EOP in spanish by "Equivalente Oveja Patagónico"), which corresponds to the average annual requirements of a Corriedale sheep of 49 kg of live weight at service, sheared in September. That gestates and weans a live 20 kg lamb at 100 days of lactation. This corresponds to 2.79 mega calories of metabolizable energy per day [16]. Then, it is possible to estimate the stocking rate in other categories [2, 3], be they sheep (dry sheep, breeding sheep, lamb, ram, etc.), cattle (bull, dry cow, breeding cow, heifer, calf, etc.), goats (castrón, dry goat, breeding goat, goating, etc.), horses (horse, filly, dry mare, breeding mare), rabbit, hare, etc. (**Table 4**). It is also possible to calculate the stocking rate considering the square league, which is a measure widely used in some regions by farmers. It is important to remember that 1 square league is equal to 2330.99 hectares.

Vegetation map: These data must be accompanied by a satellite image, in order to calculate the number of hectares occupied by each environment and thus have the animal load data. Normally, the processing and analysis of available satellite images are carried out in the office. Based on the electromagnetic radiation reflected and emitted by all the elements present on the earth's surface, it is possible to obtain a map of plant forms present in a region, which is obtained from the conceptual classification of the environmental variability present, which can be measured in a satellite image by combining bands of different wavelengths.

The way in which each of the elements reflects or emits radiation has to do with its particular characteristics (chemical composition, surface roughness, moisture


#### **Table 4.**

*Livestock equivalences according to categories and species, taken from [2–4].*

content, reflective properties, etc.); this behavior is unique for each coverage type and is called a spectral signature.

Sentinel T19HEB images, etc. can be used. Images with low cloudiness should be chosen. A combination of false-color composite (FCC) can be made of bands 11-8-4, and the area of the image that will be of interest should be cropped. Then, through exhaustive visual analysis of a variety of compositions and spectral features of the image, the information that allows the best discrimination of the categories of interest is selected. In short, the image must be analyzed using combinations of bands based on the spectral behavior of the vegetation. In this way, through the application of unsupervised and supervised digital classification techniques, the first map of plant formations is generated.

Finally, it is important to note that the classification of the multispectral image implies categorizing the reflectances present in the image in statistical terms. This involves reducing the measurement scale of a continuous variable (reflectances) to a nominal or categorical scale (classes of information), that is, transforming the original image into another image whose pixels no longer reflect values of electromagnetic energy or physical variables (such as radiance or reflectance), but categories or classes of information (types of vegetation).
