Avaliação da vulnerabilidade ambiental à perda de solo no município de Jeremoabo (BA)

Abstract

The municipality of Jeremoabo is located in the semiarid region of Bahia State. Because of both natural, environmental characteristics and unsustainable land use, this municipality is facing an accelerated environmental degradation. Consequently, it presents high potential for development of desertification processes. The objective of this study was to analyze the natural and anthropogenic variables in a integrated way to generate the municipality´s map of environmental vulnerability to the soil loss. Primary data regarding land use and land cover map, produced from satellite image processing, and map of vulnerability to the Geomorphology, produced from digital elevation model, were integrated with secondary data which were obtained from available maps of geology, soils, and climate. Data modeling was conducted based on an adapted methodology proposed by Crepani and on support from remote Sensing and geographical information system. For each attribute of each variable, it was defined a value of vulnerability by using map reclassifying techniques. Next, the map of environmental vulnerability was obtained through the algebra maps. It was possible to identify areas with different degrees of degradation and, consequently, areas with different degrees of susceptibility to the process of desertification.