Sociedade & Natureza, Uberlândia, Special Issue, 674-682, May, 2005 674 THE USE OF DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS TO QUANTIFY VEGETATION GROUND COVER IN DEGRADED AREAS Marinete Martins Azevedo, Engenheira Ambiental, marinetemartins@hotmail.com Laércio Leonel Leite, Universidade Católica de Brasília, laercio@pos.ucb.br Gustavo Macedo de Mello Baptista, Universidade Católica de Brasília, gmbaptista@pos.ucb.br ABSTRACT This study was aimed at assessing the possibility to use digital photographs to evaluate success of the reclamation of a gravel-mined degraded area. The indicator used to measure success was the degree of vegetation ground cover. Photographs were taken with a Canon camera (model Power Shot A 100). On 11 th of October 2003, in a sunny day (without clouds), a total of 24 photographs were taken of the centre of the 24 experimental plots. All the 24 photographs were processed with ENVI 3.5 software following the same procedures applied to process satellite scenes. In each scene analysed, two classes - vegetation cover and bared soil - were identified with the maximum likelihood algorithm. Results showed that digital photographs can be used in the quantification of vegetation ground cover and that the technique employed in this study can be applied to evaluate methodologies of reclamation of mined areas in which the establishment of vegetation is expected. The technique tested in this study can be employed by government agencies in charge of land reclamation plans because it is efficient in determining vegetation ground cover, is easy to perform and is not expensive. Keywords: Land reclamation, degraded areas, mined areas, assessment of vegetation ground cover. INTRODUCTION Civil engineering works demand natural resources in large scale. Loam, silt, sand, gravel rock, among others natural materials extracted from nature are employed in construction of roads, dams and buildings. In general, large areas of land are degraded in the process of extraction of these materials. In the Federal District of Brazil, a combination of facts which started in 1955 with the beginning of the construction of Brasília, the transference of the capital of the country from