The purpose of this paper was to study land use and the alterations of the natural vegetation at the Edgardia Experimental Farm, in Botucatu-SP, Brazil. Land use thematic maps for different dates (1978 and 1997) were derived from aerial photography, and Spot and Landsat-5 TM images. A G.I.S. program, ILWIS v.2.2 for Windows was used to generate spatial information. Variation in the occurrence of natural vegetation was assessed by overlaying the land use maps of both periods. This information was crossed with the slope and soil unit maps. There was a significant regeneration of the tropical moist seasonal forest fragments at the Botucatu Cuesta Front Range, and a little regeneration in the forest - savannah transition areas at the Peripheric Depression.
Land use; natural vegetation; Geographic Information System (G.I.S)
