Índices de desempenho ambiental e comportamento hidrossedimentológico em duas bacias hidrográficas rurais

Abstract

Anthropogenic actions determine the surface condition of watersheds by altering the hydrological dynamics and sediment yields. Environmental quality indicators that use the hydrosedimentological variables and characteristics of the watersheds, considering the complexity assigned by the human-environment interaction may be more useful than the most robust model to evaluate paired watersheds. These models require exhaustive field works, becoming very demanding in terms of both cost and manpower. The overall objective of this study was to evaluate the hydrosedimentological behavior and the use of indicators to evaluate the different proportions of soil use in rural watersheds paired. The two rural watersheds, with an area of 1.445 km2 (RW 140) and 0.796 km2 (RW 80) are located in the municipality of Júlio de Castilhos, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. The study period was from 2010 to 2012 and the hydrosedimentological variables monitored were rainfall, water flow, turbidity, and concentration of suspended and drag sediment. The coefficients of flow regularization and dissipation of erosive energy were also used to assess surface conditions provided by the human-environment interaction. From the results we conclude that: i) high proportions of riparian forests in watersheds minimizes the impacts of rainfall events, resulting in less runoff and greater baseflow; ii) crop areas with inadequate soil management and localized superjacent to wetlands contributed to maximize the impacts of large precipitation by increasing runoff and reducing water reserves during drought periods; iii) large rainfall events potentiate the sediment production, especially in areas with degraded riparian forest; iv) high proportions of wetlands minimizes sediment production, generating even greater runoff, and the conservation of areas surrounding watercourses with natural vegetation attenuates the sediments mobilization, reducing the risk of contamination of water courses, especially when the soil management is inappropriate. The coefficients used showed responses in agreement with the hydrosedimentological changes, demonstrating that they are effective in quantifying the hydrological and energy dissipation changes generated by the human-environment interaction in watersheds with different proportions of land use.