## 3 Results
### Determination of Land-Cover Changes
The trend of land-cover degradation was accentuated in paramo ecosystems, with a gain lower than in the 2000-2010 period and a higher loss, decreasing from 46.1% to 35.7%. Water bodies maintained the trend of loss, gain and persistence, decreasing from 4.6% to 3.3%. Wetland (We) slightly reduced in this period, degrading by 2.5%, with a persistence of 12.5% and a gain of 0.5%. The western zone is the area that shows the greatest degradation, possibly because accessibility to this area is not complicated, which has facilitated population growth, bringing with it an increase in the productive sector. Pasture soils represent the cover that has caused the greatest environmental impact on the natural systems of the study area, such as the moorlands and wetlands. This may have occurred because of the set of laws that provide stability to the prices of the dairy sector. After pasture, crops also represent, in good proportion, one of the main land covers that have caused degradation. The main crop that has been developed in the area is potatoes, perhaps because this type of crop adapts efficiently to the climatological and topographical characteristics of the Andean zones. Soils have increased to a greater extent in the areas near the lakes; water bodies have decreased as a result of the increase in soil cover. This dynamic of land-cover changes could be occurring due to notable changes in temperature, possibly as a result of climate change. Temperature variability causes a decrease in the hydrological capacity of soils, causing dryness, the release of carbon into the atmosphere and the instability of related ecosystems. The alterations to the natural resources of the study area can be attributed to the lack of adequate agricultural and livestock planning. According to several authors [57; 58], if the first-half category systematically gains against the existing second-half category and the second-half category systematically loses against the first-half category, the results indicate a systematic transition process from the first-half category to the second-half category. Therefore, it is critical to identify systematic transitions based on gains and losses to verify the simultaneous impact and to recognize the key signals of coverage changes in the area. The main systematic transitions in terms of gains and losses that occurred between 2000 and 2020 are described as follows: Soil cover was gained and replaced water cover. Pasture cover was gained and replaced crops, forest plantations, soil, wetland and moorland. Pasture cover change is predominant over all the changes that occurred in the rest of the analyzed covers; although water was replaced by soil cover, soil was replaced by pasture. The main transition forces are represented by changes from moorland to pasture and changes from water to soil. The least representative transition force values are related to changes from pasture to other types of cover, which can occur because, although pasture cover loses surface area, the growth of its area is much greater. The transitions in which the pasture category did not intervene were also systematic, but the lack of simultaneous occurrences determines that the values obtained neither show the key information to study the change in the analyzed territory nor do they provide a clear idea related to the coverages that were exposed to a greater pressure of change. The transitions that have occurred indicate that the agricultural frontier is advancing and replacing natural ecosystems. There is no systematic transition in terms of gains that indicates that any natural cover is recovering in a noticeable way, so natural ecosystems are losing the environmental services they provide to their surroundings.