ESTIMATIVE OF SOIL LOSSES IN THE PARANAPANEMA RIVER BASIN, SOUTHEAST BRAZIL

Abstract

The Paranapanema River Basin is one of the most important basins in the Centre-South of Brazil, with fertile soils for the practice of agriculture and reservoirs for electricity generation. In the research, the elaboration of a geographic database in the QGIS system was proposed in order to estimate of soil losses using the parameters of the Universal Soil Loss Equation method. Maps corresponding to erosivity, soil types, slopes and land cover in the Paranapanema River Basin were developed in order to define the areas of the plots and generate an average for each factor. Using different tables, averages were obtained by adding the plots of each index to the average from the total area of the watershed. Based on the applied analysis of the Universal Soil Loss Equation, an estimate of 18.13 t/ha/year was obtained, with an estimated sediment production of 302 million tons per year.