Physiographic Characterization of the Córrego do Perdido River Basin – Ibatiba/ES

Abstract

The use of natural resources has been accompanied by serious problems appearing from inadequate management. Thus, knowing the characteristics of the environmental planning units can contribute to minimizing damage and planning conservationist actions. The morphometric characteristics of the Córrego do Perdido river basin were determined for environmental planning purposes. To this end, we used radar data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) to represent the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and geoprocessing techniques in a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment. To elucidate the hydrological behavior of the basin, we estimated some morphometric parameters. The drainage area obtained corresponds to 31.11 km², and the perimeter measures 33.57 km. With an irregular shape, the basin presented a shape factor equal to 0.12, compactness coefficient of 1.69, circularity index of 0.347 and small flow extension (0.1052 km). The drainage density found was 2.38 km-2, indicating high drainage capacity. The basin had a strong wavy terrain (47.38% of the total basin area), with an average slope of 30.6% and an average altitude of 1,145 meters. The physiographic characterization revealed through the morphometric indices that the basin has an elongated shape and a dendritic drainage network of fourth order and, disregarding the adverse hydrological events, is not very susceptible to flooding. The high drainage capacity contributes to the infiltration of water into the soil, and the vegetation cover of the slopes must be preserved.