SUSCEPTIBILITY OF THE SERIDÓ GEOPARQUE TERRITORY TO EROSION PROCESSES
Soil losses. USLE. Seridó Geopark.
The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) is a widely used method when it comes to estimating soil loss from a given area. In view of this, the research aims to analyze the susceptibility to erosive processes in Geopark Seridó – RN. The estimation of soil losses was performed using USLE in a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment for data spatialization. The USLE showed an average result of soil losses for the Seridó Geopark of 9.04 t.ha-1.year-1, being considered low. About 61.59% of the total area was classified as having very low soil loss. Only 16.80% of the Seridó Geopark area was classified as having moderate soil loss. A large part of this value is associated with the factor of greater slope and land use and occupation, such as agriculture and livestock. The extremely severe classification represented only 0.26% of the total area of the Seridó Geopark, with mining being the type of land use responsible for a large part of this value. The estimate of sediment production for each geosite showed that 9 of the 21 geosites presented soil losses classified as moderate. In most cases, the moderate values were related to the type of use and occupation (agriculture and livestock) and to a considerable slope. The geosites that presented very low and low losses were normally related to a type of land use and occupation classified as arboreal and shrubby caatinga. Those with extremely severe soil losses are those with a type of use and occupation classified as mining and agriculture.