SIMULATING THE EFFECT OF PERMANENT PRESERVATION AREAS ON SOIL EROSION RATES

Water erosion is one of the main problems faced by the Furnas Lake Surrounding Watershed, located in southeast Brazil. The erosive process is intensified by inadequate land occupation of the lake margins where should be riparian forests, or permanent preservation areas (APP), in order to protect water resources. In this context, our work aimed to estimate the soil losses of this watershed using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) in two different scenarios: I - considering the actual occupation of the area, and II - building an alternative scenario where permanent preservation areas were present. Therefore, we considered physical, edaphoclimatic, and land use and management factors. To simulate the presence of preservation areas, we based it on the Brazilian Forest Code (Bill no. 12.651/2012). In the real scenario (I), the total soil loss estimated was 31,580,907.47 Mg.year(-1) (32% over the Soil Loss Tolerance) with an average loss of 19.00 Mg.ha(-1).year(-1), while in the conservationist scenario (II), there was 10% decrease, which means the mitigation of the erosion process as well as of the negative environmental impacts that can be generated by soil degradation.