This thesis brings new information about development of five chosen snad-pits in CHKO Třeboňsko. It represents future state of this sand-pits with different rate of near ? natural restoration used during the reclamation. The results are accompanied by comparison of surface temperature of each category of land cover.

Atualmente a maior ameaça à integridade de ecossistemas aquáticos reside nas ações antrópicas, que através de alterações na cobertura vegetal ripária, atingem todos os compartimentos dos sistemas lóticos, alterando a estrutura física, química e biológica do rio e os padrões de ligação entre ecossistemas terrestres e aquáticos. A importância dos macroinvertebrados fragmentadores ainda não é bem conhecida nos trópicos. Eles podem contribuir para a decomposição de folhas em córregos, que é um processo fundamental para o fluxo de energia em rios de pequeno porte. Os processos de decomposição e produção secundária de macroinvertebrados aquáticos nos ecossistemas lóticos são intimamente relacionados com o aporte da vegetação terrestre, e podem ser sensíveis às alterações na cobertura vegetal ripária. Os objetivos desse estudo foram avaliar: (a) quais mudanças o desmatamento pode causar nos parâmetros físicos e químicos de rios; (b) os efeitos do desmatamento sobre a estrutura da comunidade de macroinvertebrados bentônicos associados às folhas, (c) nos processos ecossistêmicos, como decomposição foliar e produção secundária, e (d) a associação entre produção secundária de fragmentadores e decomposição foliar. O estudo foi realizado em 27 locais distribuídos em quatro córregos (7-8 locais por rio) de segunda-terceira ordem e que apresentavam um gradiente de desmatamento. Para estimar a taxa de decomposição, cinco pacotes de folha foram imersos em cada um dos pontos. Um pacote de folha foi retirado de cada ponto após 2, 7, 15 e 28 dias de imersão. O quinto pacote de folha foi retirado no 37 dia de imersão para as estimativas de produção secundária, biodiversidade e a diversidade funcional de insetos aquáticos. As concentrações de amônio aumentaram e a riqueza de espécies de insetos aquáticos e de EPTs (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera e Trichoptera) dos pacotes de folhas diminuíram com o aumento do desmatamento. As taxas de decomposição diminuíram com o aumento do desmatamento. Os dados sugerem que a perda de vegetação ripária pela conversão em agropecuária teve impacto em parâmetros químicos e bióticos, tanto na estrutura da comunidade de macroinvertebrados quanto no funcionamento do ecossistema. Concluímos que a restauração e preservação da mata ripária deve ser um foco central das estratégias de gestão de ecossistemas lóticos para assegurar que os processos ecossistêmicos e a estrutura das comunidades em bacias hidrográficas estejam agindo como provedores dos serviços ambientais esperados. / Currently the biggest threat to the integrity of aquatic ecosystems lies in human actions, which through changes in riparian vegetation, reach all compartments of river systems by changing the physical structure, chemical and biological river and connecting patterns between terrestrial ecosystems and water. Macroinvertebrate shredders importance is not well known in the tropics. They can contribute to leaf decomposition in streams, which is a fundamental process for energy flow in small rivers. Leaf decomposition and aquatic macroinvertebrates secondary production processes in stream ecosystems are closely related to the contribution of terrestrial vegetation, and may be sensitive to changes in riparian vegetation. The objectives of this study were to assess: (a) what changes deforestation can cause the physical and chemical parameters of rivers; (B) the effects of deforestation on benthic macroinvertebrate community structure associated with leaves, (c) the effects of deforestation in ecosystem processes such as leaf decomposition and secondary production, and (d) the association between shredders secondary production and leaf decomposition. The study was conducted in 27 sites distributed in four streams (7-8 sites per river) from second to third order that had deforestation gradient. To estimate decomposition rates five leaf packs were immersed in each of the points. A leaf pack was removed from each after 2, 7, 15 and 28 days of immersion. The fifth leaf pack was removed on the 37th day of immersion to estimates of secondary production, biodiversity and functional diversity of aquatic insects. The ammonium concentrations increased and species richness of aquatic insects and EPT (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera) of leaf packs decreased with increase of deforestation. The decomposition rates decreased with increasing deforestation. The data suggest that the loss of riparian vegetation in the agricultural conversion impacted chemical and biotic parameters in both macroinvertebrate community structure and the functioning of the ecosystem. We conclude that the restoration and preservation of riparian vegetation must be a central focus of stream ecosystems management strategies to ensure that ecosystem processes and community structure in river basins are acting as providers of the expected environmental services.

This diploma thesis deals with the statistical evaluation of the energy balance of landscape surface and its other chosen specifications via remote sensing and ground meteorological features. The thesis also includes the mapping of the landscape cover and its influence on the microclimate in the given area. The Novohradské Mountains, specifically the catchment of Bedřichovsky creek became the model area for this type of research. As each group of Land Cover (forest, permanent of grass cover, arable land, buildings) appears right in the catchment of Bedřichovský potok, it is suitable to evaluate the energy balance right in there.

abstract: Large datasets of sub-meter aerial imagery represented as orthophoto mosaics are widely available today, and these data sets may hold a great deal of untapped information. This imagery has a potential to locate several types of features; for example, forests, parking lots, airports, residential areas, or freeways in the imagery. However, the appearances of these things vary based on many things including the time that the image is captured, the sensor settings, processing done to rectify the image, and the geographical and cultural context of the region captured by the image. This thesis explores the use of deep convolutional neural networks to classify land use from very high spatial resolution (VHR), orthorectified, visible band multispectral imagery. Recent technological and commercial applications have driven the collection a massive amount of VHR images in the visible red, green, blue (RGB) spectral bands, this work explores the potential for deep learning algorithms to exploit this imagery for automatic land use/ land cover (LULC) classification. The benefits of automatic visible band VHR LULC classifications may include applications such as automatic change detection or mapping. Recent work has shown the potential of Deep Learning approaches for land use classification; however, this thesis improves on the state-of-the-art by applying additional dataset augmenting approaches that are well suited for geospatial data. Furthermore, the generalizability of the classifiers is tested by extensively evaluating the classifiers on unseen datasets and we present the accuracy levels of the classifier in order to show that the results actually generalize beyond the small benchmarks used in training. Deep networks have many parameters, and therefore they are often built with very large sets of labeled data. Suitably large datasets for LULC are not easy to come by, but techniques such as refinement learning allow networks trained for one task to be retrained to perform another recognition task. Contributions of this thesis include demonstrating that deep networks trained for image recognition in one task (ImageNet) can be efficiently transferred to remote sensing applications and perform as well or better than manually crafted classifiers without requiring massive training data sets. This is demonstrated on the UC Merced dataset, where 96% mean accuracy is achieved using a CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) and 5-fold cross validation. These results are further tested on unrelated VHR images at the same resolution as the training set. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2016

abstract: Urbanization and woody plant encroachment, with subsequent brush management, are two significant land cover changes that are represented in the southwestern United States. Urban areas continue to grow, and rangelands are undergoing vegetation conversions, either purposely through various rangeland management techniques, or by accident, through inadvertent effects of climate and management. This thesis investigates how areas undergoing land cover conversions in a semiarid region, through urbanization or rangeland management, influences energy, water and carbon fluxes. Specifically, the following scientific questions are addressed: (1) what is the impact of different urban land cover types in Phoenix, AZ on energy and water fluxes?, (2) how does the land cover heterogeneity influence energy, water, and carbon fluxes in a semiarid rangeland undergoing woody plant encroachment?, and (3) what is the impact of brush management on energy, water, and carbon fluxes? The eddy covariance technique is well established to measure energy, water, and carbon fluxes and is used to quantify and compare flux measurements over different land surfaces. Results reveal that in an urban setting, paved surfaces exhibit the largest sensible and lowest latent heat fluxes in an urban environment, while a mesic landscape exhibits the largest latent heat fluxes, due to heavy irrigation. Irrigation impacts flux sensitivity to precipitation input, where latent heat fluxes increase with precipitation in xeric and parking lot landscapes, but do not impact the mesic system. In a semiarid managed rangeland, past management strategies and disturbance histories impact vegetation distribution, particularly the distribution of mesquite trees. At the site with less mesquite coverage, evapotranspiration (ET) is greater, due to greater grass cover. Both sites are generally net sinks of CO2, which is largely dependent on moisture availability, while the site with greater mesquite coverage has more respiration and generally greater gross ecosystem production (GEP). Initial impacts of brush management reveal ET and GEP decrease, due to the absence of mesquite trees. However the impact appears to be minimal by the end of the productive season. Overall, this dissertation advances the understanding of land cover change impacts on surface energy, water, and carbon fluxes in semiarid ecosystems. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering 2017

The role of streams in the global carbon budget was for a long time neglected, since they were considered passive transporters of carbon from land to sea. However, studies have shown that streams are often supersaturated in carbon dioxide (CO2), making them sources of carbon to the atmosphere. The main sources of stream CO2 are in-stream mineralization of organic matter and transport of carbon from the catchment. The catchment derived CO2 could both be of biogenic (respiration) or geogenic (weathering) origin. Most studies regarding the topic rely on measurements carried out in forest-dominated catchments, while agricultural streams are under-represented. The objective of this study was to examine partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) in streams in catchments dominated by agriculture. This was done to increase the knowledge about agricultural influence on stream pCO2, and to provide a basis for planning mitigation strategies for reducing CO2 emissions from the agriculture sector. Sampling was performed in ten streams draining agriculture-dominated catchments around Uppsala, Sweden, from June to November 2017. Measurements of pCO2 were carried out with floating chambers, equipped with CO2 sensors. Nutrients, organic carbon, discharge and different chemical variables were also measured. For correlation tests, the method Kendall’s Tau was used. Catchments were delineated in a geographic information system (GIS) and the CORINE Land Cover dataset was used to examine land use. Stream specific median pCO2 varied from 3000 to 10 000 μatm. In some streams, pCO2 exceeded 10 000 μatm, which was outside of the sensor’s measurement range. Values of pCO2 were high compared to similar studies in forested catchments, which could indicate that occurrence of agriculture in the catchment increases stream CO2. Correlation was found between pCO2 and discharge, with negative correlation in five streams and positive correlation in two. Negative correlation was found between pCO2 and pH and percentage of dissolved oxygen, respectively. No significant correlation was found between pCO2 and fraction of agricultural land use, nutrients or organic carbon. Further studies are needed to examine the sources of CO2, since it is possible that a large part of the CO2 has a geogenic origin. The floating chamber method should be revised to reduce the sensor’s sensitivity to condensation and cold temperatures, and to increase the measuring range.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:28:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-08-29Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:34:35Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 goncalves_f_me_prud.pdf: 2858098 bytes, checksum: 5cde18f5b8fe53b3c6a4e77315dc686c (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / O objetivo do trabalho foi avaliar como o uso e cobertura da terra pode interferir nas variáveis químicas e físicas da água do rio Santo Anastácio – Oeste Paulista, a partir da utilização integrada de Sistema de Informação Geográfica, Geoprocessamento, Sensoriamento Remoto e Análises Físico/Química da água. Para o estudo da cobertura da terra, o procedimento metodológico foi baseado em processamento digital de imagens orbitais, realizado em um ambiente de sistemas para aquisição, armazenamento, manipulação, análise e apresentação de dados georreferenciados, ou seja, em um SIG. Nesse foram realizadas as seguintes etapas: preparação da melhor composição e aprimoramento de cor, registro, segmentação, classificação supervisionada, elaboração, validação e quantificação de mapas temáticos. As variáveis físicas e químicas da água foram obtidas diretamente no campo, foram analisados: pH, condutividade, oxigênio dissolvido, temperatura, turbidez e sólidos em suspensão. Vale ressaltar que a pesquisa visou à caracterização limnológica do rio e não o levantamento de índices de qualidade da água. A metodologia adotada mostrou-se eficiente, visto que a pesquisa indicou a interferência de determinados usos e coberturas da terra, em especial a pastagem e cana-de-açúcar, causando alterações em algumas variáveis químicas e físicas da água no rio Santo Anastácio / The objective of this study was to evaluate how the use and land cover can interfere in the chemical and physical variables of the Santo Anastácio river - West Paulista, from the integrated use of geographic information system, GIS, remote sensing analysis and physical / chemical of water. For the study of land cover, the methodological procedure was based on digital processing of satellite images, held in a systems environment for the acquisition, storage, manipulation, analysis and presentation of georeferenced data, ie, in a GIS. That were performed the following steps: preparing the best composition and color enhancement, registration, segmentation, supervised classification, development, validation and quantification of thematic maps. The physical and chemical variables of water were obtained directly at the field, were analyzed: pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, turbidity and suspended solids. It is noteworthy that the research aimed to characterize the limnological river and not raising rates water quality. The methodology proved to be efficient, since the survey indicated the interference of certain uses and land cover, especially grass and cane sugar, caused changes in some chemical and physical variables in Santo Anastácio River’s water

Submitted by Angelica Scheffer da Motta Abrantes (angelica_scheffer@hotmail.com) on 2017-10-16T01:35:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Final_Abrantes.pdf: 11726649 bytes, checksum: 0399986b078ffc94a8ed5447510d749e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Monique Sasaki (sayumi_sasaki@hotmail.com) on 2017-10-18T17:39:54Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 abrantes_asm_me_prud.pdf: 11726649 bytes, checksum: 0399986b078ffc94a8ed5447510d749e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-18T17:39:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 abrantes_asm_me_prud.pdf: 11726649 bytes, checksum: 0399986b078ffc94a8ed5447510d749e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-10-06 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Em muitas residências de alvenaria dos municípios de Ourinhos/SP, Jacarezinho/PR e Ribeirão Claro/PR identificam-se biodeteriorações nas paredes internas e/ou externas. Estas biodeteriorações não apresentam uma localização preferencial, podendo se desenvolver tanto no teto quanto no rodapé e nas paredes das casas. A aparência é de bolhas que, num estágio mais avançado, apresentam total deslocamento do reboco. Essas biodeteriorações resultam em prejuízos financeiros aos moradores, tendo em vista a necessidade de obras de recuperação da área afetada. A ocorrência dessa problemática se deve à presença da matéria orgânica na areia, que nos municípios citados é predominantemente oriunda do rio Paranapanema. Esta matéria orgânica favorece a proliferação de fungos e/ou bactérias. Esta condição está intimamente ligada ao uso e à ocupação da terra das áreas adjacentes, como também ao uso indiscriminado dos recursos naturais, como por exemplo, da água e do solo. Desta forma, este trabalho objetiva identificar as possíveis relações do uso e cobertura da terra nos municípios de Ourinhos/SP, Jacarezinho/PR e Ribeirão Claro/PR com a qualidade microbiológica da areia destinada à construção civil. O recorte espacial dos pontos de análise considerou as sub bacias do rio Paranapanena nas quais os locais de extração de areia estão inseridos. Para tanto, estes locais foram mapeados, assim como o uso da terra nas suas adjacências. Ao mesmo tempo foi aplicado um questionário em todas as casas de bairros com ocupação em torno de 15 anos de cada um dos municípios em estudo, objetivando identificar, dimensionar e caracterizar o problema bem como suas consequências. Outro questionário foi aplicado nos portos de areia da região para identificar a origem e as características da areia usada na construção civil dos municípios mencionados. Em seguida, foi feita uma amostragem do referido material nos portos e foram submetidas a análises de matéria orgânica, micológica e microbiológica, possíveis causadores das biodeteriorações. Por fim, os resultados obtidos apontam a presença de bactérias do grupo coliforme nas amostras oriundas dos portos de areia alocados nos cursos hídricos estudados, o que aponta o despejo de esgoto doméstico; foram identificadas também espécies de fungos decompositores, tanto nas amostras dos portos de areia, quanto das retiradas das biodeteriorações nas residências; quanto aos questionários 65% das residências possuem as biodeteriorações, 28% não apresentam mas já viram em outros estabelecimentos; no que se refere, aos mapas de uso da terra, observou-se uma substituição das vegetação original pelos usos de pastagem, agriculturas temporárias, silvicultura e área urbana, fato que mostra o modelo de produção de espaço na alteração das bacias hidrográficas por atividade antrópica, que está diretamente ligada com a qualidade microbiológica da areia. / In a few masonry residences from Ourinhos/SP, Jacarezinho/PR and Ribeirão Claro/PR it is possible to identify biodeteriorations in both internal and external walls. This biodeteriorations do not have a specific localization, so it Is possible to find it on the ceiling and footer of the residences. Its appearance is of bubbles that, in an advanced stage, shows total displacement of the plaster. This biodeteriorations result in financial looses to the residents, since there is the need for works to recover the affected area. The occurrence of this problematic is due to the presence of organic matter in the sand, which in the mentioned municipalities is predominantly from the Paranapanema River. This organic matter help the proliferation of fungi and/or bacteria. This condition is connected to the use and occupation of land in adjacent areas, as well as the indiscriminate use of natural resources such as water and soil. Thus, this research aims to identify the relations of land use and coverage in the the municipalities of Ourinhos / SP, Jacarezinho / PR and Ribeirão Claro / PR with the microbiological quality of the sand destined to the civil construction. The spatial clipping of the points of analysis considered the sub basins of the Paranapanena River in which the sand extraction sites are inserted. In order to do so, these sites were mapped, as well as the land use in its surroundings. Concomitantly it was applied a questionnaire in all the residences of districts that were existed in about 15 years of each of the municipalities under study, aiming to identify, size and characterize the problem as well as its consequences. Another questionnaire was applied in the region’s sands ports to identify the origin and characteristics of the sand used in the civil construction of the mentioned municipalities. After that, it was collected the material in the ports and after subjected to organic, mycological and microbiological analyzes, aiming to see if these could be the cause of biodeterioration. Lastly, the results indicate the presence of bacteria from the coliform group in the samples from the sand ports allocated to the studied water courses, which indicates the discharge of domestic sewage. It was also identified species of fungi decomposers, both in the samples of the sand ports and from the biodeteriorated walls. As for the questionnaires, about 65% of the residences have biodeteriorations, 28% don’t present biodeteriorations, but already seen it in another residences. In regard to the land use maps, it was observed a substitution of the original vegetation for the uses of pasture, temporary agriculture, forestry and urban area, which allows to see the part of the current model of space production in the alteration of the hydrographic basins by anthropic activity, which is directly linked to the microbiological quality of the sand.

Orientador: Paulo César Rocha / Banca: Encarnita Salas Martin / Banca: Patricia Helena Mirandola / Resumo: O objetivo do trabalho foi avaliar como o uso e cobertura da terra pode interferir nas variáveis químicas e físicas da água do rio Santo Anastácio - Oeste Paulista, a partir da utilização integrada de Sistema de Informação Geográfica, Geoprocessamento, Sensoriamento Remoto e Análises Físico/Química da água. Para o estudo da cobertura da terra, o procedimento metodológico foi baseado em processamento digital de imagens orbitais, realizado em um ambiente de sistemas para aquisição, armazenamento, manipulação, análise e apresentação de dados georreferenciados, ou seja, em um SIG. Nesse foram realizadas as seguintes etapas: preparação da melhor composição e aprimoramento de cor, registro, segmentação, classificação supervisionada, elaboração, validação e quantificação de mapas temáticos. As variáveis físicas e químicas da água foram obtidas diretamente no campo, foram analisados: pH, condutividade, oxigênio dissolvido, temperatura, turbidez e sólidos em suspensão. Vale ressaltar que a pesquisa visou à caracterização limnológica do rio e não o levantamento de índices de qualidade da água. A metodologia adotada mostrou-se eficiente, visto que a pesquisa indicou a interferência de determinados usos e coberturas da terra, em especial a pastagem e cana-de-açúcar, causando alterações em algumas variáveis químicas e físicas da água no rio Santo Anastácio / Abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate how the use and land cover can interfere in the chemical and physical variables of the Santo Anastácio river - West Paulista, from the integrated use of geographic information system, GIS, remote sensing analysis and physical / chemical of water. For the study of land cover, the methodological procedure was based on digital processing of satellite images, held in a systems environment for the acquisition, storage, manipulation, analysis and presentation of georeferenced data, ie, in a GIS. That were performed the following steps: preparing the best composition and color enhancement, registration, segmentation, supervised classification, development, validation and quantification of thematic maps. The physical and chemical variables of water were obtained directly at the field, were analyzed: pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, turbidity and suspended solids. It is noteworthy that the research aimed to characterize the limnological river and not raising rates water quality. The methodology proved to be efficient, since the survey indicated the interference of certain uses and land cover, especially grass and cane sugar, caused changes in some chemical and physical variables in Santo Anastácio River's water / Mestre

Atualmente a maior ameaça à integridade de ecossistemas aquáticos reside nas ações antrópicas, que através de alterações na cobertura vegetal ripária, atingem todos os compartimentos dos sistemas lóticos, alterando a estrutura física, química e biológica do rio e os padrões de ligação entre ecossistemas terrestres e aquáticos. A importância dos macroinvertebrados fragmentadores ainda não é bem conhecida nos trópicos. Eles podem contribuir para a decomposição de folhas em córregos, que é um processo fundamental para o fluxo de energia em rios de pequeno porte. Os processos de decomposição e produção secundária de macroinvertebrados aquáticos nos ecossistemas lóticos são intimamente relacionados com o aporte da vegetação terrestre, e podem ser sensíveis às alterações na cobertura vegetal ripária. Os objetivos desse estudo foram avaliar: (a) quais mudanças o desmatamento pode causar nos parâmetros físicos e químicos de rios; (b) os efeitos do desmatamento sobre a estrutura da comunidade de macroinvertebrados bentônicos associados às folhas, (c) nos processos ecossistêmicos, como decomposição foliar e produção secundária, e (d) a associação entre produção secundária de fragmentadores e decomposição foliar. O estudo foi realizado em 27 locais distribuídos em quatro córregos (7-8 locais por rio) de segunda-terceira ordem e que apresentavam um gradiente de desmatamento. Para estimar a taxa de decomposição, cinco pacotes de folha foram imersos em cada um dos pontos. Um pacote de folha foi retirado de cada ponto após 2, 7, 15 e 28 dias de imersão. O quinto pacote de folha foi retirado no 37 dia de imersão para as estimativas de produção secundária, biodiversidade e a diversidade funcional de insetos aquáticos. As concentrações de amônio aumentaram e a riqueza de espécies de insetos aquáticos e de EPTs (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera e Trichoptera) dos pacotes de folhas diminuíram com o aumento do desmatamento. As taxas de decomposição diminuíram com o aumento do desmatamento. Os dados sugerem que a perda de vegetação ripária pela conversão em agropecuária teve impacto em parâmetros químicos e bióticos, tanto na estrutura da comunidade de macroinvertebrados quanto no funcionamento do ecossistema. Concluímos que a restauração e preservação da mata ripária deve ser um foco central das estratégias de gestão de ecossistemas lóticos para assegurar que os processos ecossistêmicos e a estrutura das comunidades em bacias hidrográficas estejam agindo como provedores dos serviços ambientais esperados. / Currently the biggest threat to the integrity of aquatic ecosystems lies in human actions, which through changes in riparian vegetation, reach all compartments of river systems by changing the physical structure, chemical and biological river and connecting patterns between terrestrial ecosystems and water. Macroinvertebrate shredders importance is not well known in the tropics. They can contribute to leaf decomposition in streams, which is a fundamental process for energy flow in small rivers. Leaf decomposition and aquatic macroinvertebrates secondary production processes in stream ecosystems are closely related to the contribution of terrestrial vegetation, and may be sensitive to changes in riparian vegetation. The objectives of this study were to assess: (a) what changes deforestation can cause the physical and chemical parameters of rivers; (B) the effects of deforestation on benthic macroinvertebrate community structure associated with leaves, (c) the effects of deforestation in ecosystem processes such as leaf decomposition and secondary production, and (d) the association between shredders secondary production and leaf decomposition. The study was conducted in 27 sites distributed in four streams (7-8 sites per river) from second to third order that had deforestation gradient. To estimate decomposition rates five leaf packs were immersed in each of the points. A leaf pack was removed from each after 2, 7, 15 and 28 days of immersion. The fifth leaf pack was removed on the 37th day of immersion to estimates of secondary production, biodiversity and functional diversity of aquatic insects. The ammonium concentrations increased and species richness of aquatic insects and EPT (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera) of leaf packs decreased with increase of deforestation. The decomposition rates decreased with increasing deforestation. The data suggest that the loss of riparian vegetation in the agricultural conversion impacted chemical and biotic parameters in both macroinvertebrate community structure and the functioning of the ecosystem. We conclude that the restoration and preservation of riparian vegetation must be a central focus of stream ecosystems management strategies to ensure that ecosystem processes and community structure in river basins are acting as providers of the expected environmental services.