AVALIAÇÃO DA ERODIBILIDADE DE DIFERENTES HORIZONTES EM LATOSSOLOS POR MEIO DA RESISTÊNCIA NÃO DRENADA EM CAMPO: ESTUDO DE CASO NA REGIÃO DO QUADRILÁTERO FERRÍFERO –MG:

Erosion is a natural process of relief modeling that is influenced by several factors. Among these, the specific characteristics of a soil have great influence, a property called erodibility. Most methodologies to estimate erodibility include criteria determined in the laboratory and in the field, with no consensus on the best method for its determination, becoming highly time consuming in some cases. The present paper addresses erodibility in road cutting slopes, with the presence of horizons with antagonistic behavior in relation to erosion. For erodibility analysis, characterization tests were performed in laboratory and the undrained shear strength was determined in the field, using mini vane test equipment. Subsequently, the results were correlated to erodibility K factor and estimated using indirect methodologies. The erodibility showed expressive relationship with shear strength, where horizons susceptible to erosion have lower values, a direct reflection of a set of soil properties, mainly particle size distribution, plasticity and organic matter content. Through analysis of variance it was possible to differentiate erodible from non-erodible soils, and these results also showed significant correlation with erodibility K factor. Therefore, the methodology proved to be promising to estimate soil erodibility potential in the field.