Mapping Soil Losses by Erosion and Rural Property: The Search for a Spatial Unit of Mapping

Abstract

The erosion constitutes nowdays in one of the major problems of the environment faced for the humanity, whose consequences both the rural and urban areas. In this context, the principal purpose this survey was to obtain and to map data of soil loss and natural potential to erosion for each rural property inserted on the basin of the streams Jacu and Santo Antonio. Thus, it was necessary to prepare pedology, soil use, pluviometrics and geomorphology data, which had been synthetisized through the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE, WISCHMEIER & SMITH, 1978), in order to quantify the loss occurred in the basin. Through these procedures, it was confirmed that in general ways basin soil losses in an amount superior to tolerance limits supportable for physical attributes of the areas studied occuring exceptions in the sectors where the soil use is effectuated throught the sylviculture. So, this research tends to advice as to damaging consequences coming from an incompatible soil use with the tolerable capacity of the physical attributes of the landscape, as for the necessity of survey whose results can be used for rural land owners and/or professionals dedicated to rural management. Key words: erosion, hydrographic basin, rural property.