Evaluation of Areas With Environmental Vulnerability in the Rio Claro Hydrographic Basin, Sp – Brazil

Abstract

The environmental vulnerability study is one of the most important ways to analyze the anthropic pressures that occur in the physical and biological environment. In this context, the aim of this work is to evaluate the areas with environmental vulnerability in the Rio Claro Hydrographic Basin in 2001 and 2017, using physical and biological factors. The hydrographic basin has 251.91km² and is localized in the Santa Rita do Passa Quatro (SP). The analysis was carried out addressing the physical attributes (slope, geology, unconsolidated materials, and aquifer units) and biological attributes with use and land cover for 2001 and 2017. The methodology was based on the environmental characterization and standardization of the information through the Fuzzy logic, processed in ArcGIS 10.5 software. The data were classified into five levels of environmental vulnerability (very low, low, medium, high and very high). For both periods, the most evident levels were the low, medium and high vulnerability, occupying over 70%. The method employed in this work allowed the evaluation of the environmental vulnerability in the Rio Claro Hydrographic Basin and made possible the definition of the regions that suffered interference due to the influence of the anthropic activities in the physical and biological environment, as well as of the different activities that occurred in the region.