Evaluating water resource maintenance for lakes of the middle Doce river

Abstract

The importance of water resources to mankind and the threat level these resources have withstood due to regional and worldwide human intervention are undeniable. In the middle stretch of the Doce river basin, there are close to 170 natural lakes, located between an environmental conservation area and monoculture eucalyptus plantations, with social, economic and biological importance. Our objective was to evaluate whether the water surface area in these lakes has remained constant in the last few decades, and make inferences on the result. To that end, we measured the water surface area of 16 lakes, from satellite images obtained between May and August in the years 1977, 1979, 1981, 2000 and 2005. Total water surface area was compared considering these dates the two different areas. We did not find any changes in water surface area for these lakes in the studied images. Likewise, we did not observe reductions in any single lake for any of the studied areas. These results indicate hydrological constancy of the system, as well as of the services this group of lakes provides to society and biodiversity in its vicinity, regardless of whether the environmental matrix consists of old-growth vegetation or eucalyptus plantations.