Environmental fragility and land use capacity as instruments of environmental planning, Caratinga River basin, Brazil

The reconciliation between the environment and development of agricultural activities constitutes a serious challenge for the management of natural resources, considering that the inappropriate use of the land can trigger significant damages along the watersheds. Thus, this work aims to analyze the environmental fragility and the land use capacity as instruments of subsidy to the environmental planning of the Caratinga River basin, Brazil. The assessment of potential fragility was performed by multicriteria analysis of soil fragility factors, geology, relief dissection, and rainfall. To determine the real susceptibility to environmental degradation, land use and land cover variables were included in the analysis. The land was classified in the system of use capacity, verifying the existing conflicts with the current land use. Bivariate Moran's I index was used to evaluate spatial autocorrelation between the analysis. The results showed that the Caratinga River basin presents medium to high potential fragility, with over half of the area in the high environmental fragility class. Compared to the analysis of environmental fragility, the land classification methodology showed spatial autocorrelation significant and determined a similar area of the basin used above its capacity, making it possible to indicate pastures and areas of exposed soil as priorities for the application of restoration policies. Thus, it is concluded that the reconciliation of the two methodologies, including the analysis of environmental degradation factors together with the understanding of the maximum capacity for agricultural use, constitutes a fundamental action to subsidize the adequate planning of land use in watersheds.