Water erosion estimate in Belem Stream Watershed in Minas Gerais state

Abstract

Water erosion causes a diversity of negative environmental impacts, provoking soil degradation and by consequence the agricole production decrease. Due to the damage caused by the soil erosion process, were developed a diversity of water erosion modeling methods in other to support in other to project and implement measures soil conservation. Among the models, the more useful is the Erosion Potential Method (EPM), which recently was adapted to the brazilian tropical conditions. In this context, the objective of this work was estimating the soil loss by Erosion Potential Method in a water basin located in Muzambinho, in the South of Minas Gerais. The EPM model estimated the water erosion in this study area starting with climate, topographic, pedology, land use, and erosive features degree parameters. The modeling stage and the parameters obtaining was done with the Geography Information System and remote sensing help. The total soil loss estimated by the EPM model was 10,418.53 Mg year-1, of which 5.50% reaches the water resources directly contributing to the siltation and water quality depreciation. The higher slope areas and the rural roads with exposed soil are where localize the biggest soil loss degrees. The modeling application was giving up in a simple and fast form, provender satisfactory results that are useful to the planning of soil conservation practices in the water basin.