Study of areas susceptible to mass movements in the Highway RS 486, Route of the Sun

Abstract

The development of new urban areas and the necessity of disposing of goods production and increased movement of people requires the intervention of man in areas previously not inhabited or preserved of the human interference. Infrastructural work sites have direct effects on ecosystems and RS/486 causes, beyond the visual impact on the landscape, a strong fragmentation in Atlantic forest. The removal of vegetation around the highway can facilitate the occurrence of natural disasters related to changes in geomorphology and weathering processes may result erosion and soil accommodation. To study the vulnerability and susceptibility the mass movements of the sub-watershed Três Forquilhas river along the highway RS 486 were employed techniques of GIS and remote sensing to produce maps of environmental vulnerability from employment of such variables as land use, geomorphology, geology, digital elevation model (DEM), slope and normalized digital vegetation index (NDVI) by applying analytic hierarchy process method (AHP) to support decision. The resulting maps matchie the purpose of defining priority areas for action of the Rio Grande do Sul State Civil Defense.

doi: 10.4336/2010.pfb.30.61.61