Characterization of the Maxixe Basin with geographic information systems

G eotechnologies are fundamental and widely used tools in urban planning, hydric resources management and erosive, landslides and floods susceptibility studies for being capable to obtain reliable and low cost information either being quali tative or quantita tive ones. Thus, taking the watershed as a delimiter of the study area for being a planning unit legally recognized, the objective of this work is to use Geographic Information System (GIS) in developing the thematic mapping and obtaining physical paramete rs, like area, perimeter, and others in order to characterize the watershed of the river Maxixe . As a result, it was possible to conduct a qualitative and quantitative analysis of basin characteristics of the study and characterized it wi th an elongated sh ape with predominantly smooth relief and a low susceptibility to major flooding and demonstrate some geoprocessing applications in obtaining relevant information for planning and management of natural resources of specific areas such as river basins.