Identificação de microbacias prioritárias para recuperação na área de proteção ambiental do rio Uberaba através de análise multicritério

Abstract

Uberaba-MG is one of the 100 most populous cities in Brazil and has the great challenge of guaranteeing water supply to the population in all seasons of the year. It is of great importance that the city's main public supply source, the Uberaba river, as well as its banks, be protected. With this in mind, in 2005 a municipal conservation unit for sustainable use was regulated, the Environmental Protection Area (EPA) of the Uberaba river, with the aim of promoting the sustainable use of natural resources and protecting the biodiversity of this region. Sixteen years after the sanctioning of its creation law, Uberaba faced the biggest water crisis of the last ninety years, showing that the occupation of land in the EPA caused losses in the maintenance of water resources. It was considered important to evaluate the natural and anthropogenic characteristics of the micro-watersheds that comprise it, as well as their interactions. Therefore, this study aimed to diagnose the priority watersheds for environmental recovery in the Uberaba river EPA using multiple criteria analysis in GIS (Geographic Information Systems) environments. Factors such as land use and vegetation cover, soil potential, use conflicts, geology, proximity to water courses and slope were evaluated and integrated into a multi-criteria map. As a product, the multi-criteria map represented the Ribeirão Saudade, dos Pintos, Barreiro, Sapecado, Alto Curso (source of the Uberaba river), Buracão, da Vida and Lanhoso microbasins as primarily subject to environmental recovery, concluding that the spring regions are the most sensitive areas in the basin and deserve special attention. The present study, therefore, provided a diagnosis of the EPA of the Uberaba river, correlating the current scenario with the possibilities of future planning with a view to maintaining the municipal public supply.