Analysis of susceptibility to water erosion in a hydrographic basin on the Brazilian semiarid

Abstract

Soil degradation is one of the main problems nowadays, being the result, in most cases, of the irresponsible actions of anthropic being on natural resources, in this context, geoprocessing presents itself as an important research tool, serving as a basis for identifying levels of environmental degradation, as well as in the classification of lands and in the elaboration of cartographic maps that assist in public planning and in new academic research. In this study, the objective was to evaluate the susceptibility to water erosion in the Piancó River Hydrographic Basin, through geotechnologies. The sequence of the methodological procedures used in this research were: creation of a georeferenced database, assigning weights to classes of susceptibility to soil erosion, thematic maps elaboration and generation of a final map of vulnerability to water erosion. From the results, it was possible to identify areas of legal incompatibility and ascertain that 66% of the study area had a moderately stable / vulnerable degree of vulnerability and that another 19% of the area classified themselves as moderately vulnerable to vulnerable, thus indicating the need the adoption of mitigation measures in order to reduce the vulnerability of soils in these places. Finally, it was concluded that the use of geotechnologies associated with empirical models is effective in classifying soil vulnerability to water erosion.