Mapa de suscetibilidade à erosão dos solos dos municípios consorciados à RIDES no Alto Paranaíba

Abstract

The accelerated soil erosion is a major environmental problem in Brazil. Every year, about 200 million tons of soil are lost, due to natural and anthropic erosive processes. Information regarding the areas most prone to erosion is important for public and private decision making, concerning land use and infrastructure installation. Taking this subject into account, this work aims to evaluate the factors that are responsible for erosion and generate a map of susceptibility to soil erosion in municipalities associated with the RIDES group –Integrated Region of Sustainable Development in Minas Gerais. This consortium is in charge of choosing a new site for the construction of a sanitary landfill, in order to serve the municipalities that make up the RIDES in Alto Paranaíba. The implantation of a sanitary landfill is of great importance for the region, since agriculture is the main economic activity, which depends on the quality of the soil and water for its development. Therefore, the implementation of this enterprise in an inadequate location can cause the loss and pollution of the soil and water resources. This work comprises a literature review, survey of available data for the study area, generation of an erosion susceptibility map, and analysis and interpretation of the results obtained. For such a production, we used the soil maps made available by Embrapa in the Alto Paranaíba region, geomorphological data developed by IBGE, geological data from the mappings made by CODEMIG (Minas Gerais Development Company) and CPRM (Mineral Resources Research Company) satellite images Alos Palsar (2011) and data from conventional and telemetric rainfall stations available by HIDROWEB in the periods from 1971 to 2021 and 2015 to 2021, respectively. To build the susceptibility map, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) was used using primary data treated and corrected using the R statistical software, and secondary data, such as slopes, obtained using the Geographic Information System. With the elaboration of the maps, it is expected to obtain an easier visualization of the areas with levels of susceptibility to erosion and, thus, contribute to the better management of this resource.