Spatiotemporal Land Use and Land Cover Changes and Their Impact on Landscape Patterns in the Colombian Coffee Cultural Landscape (2014–2034)

The Colombian Coffee Cultural Landscape (CCLC), a UNESCO World Heritage site, faces conservation threats due to changes in land use and land cover (LULC). This study analyzed and predicted the spatiotemporal dynamics of LULC in the CCLC from 2014 to 2034, assessing its effects on the landscape structure. The analyses identified negative impacts and provided insights for developing conservation and land use planning strategies aimed at comprehensive landscape management. A supervised classification methodology using the Random Forest algorithm was implemented by integrating multispectral (Landsat 8) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data (Sentinel-1), achieving an overall accuracy of 87.88% and a Kappa coefficient of 84.20%. Future projections were conducted using a hybrid Cellular Automata and Artificial Neural Network model (CA-ANN), reaching an accuracy of 88.12% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.84. The results indicate urban expansion, increasing from 1.46% in 2014 to 15.64% by 2034, accompanied by a forest cover loss of 77.8% and a reduction in coffee-growing areas from 77.91% in 2019 to 68.40% by 2034. Landscape metric analysis revealed increased fragmentation and spatial heterogeneity. The integration of multisensor remote sensing, hybrid predictive models, and landscape metrics within the CCLC provides a quantitative methodological framework to evaluate the transformation of cultural landscapes under anthropogenic pressures.