Geoenvironmental zoning of Santa Maria basin river: southwest of Rio Grande do Sul

In the field of Geography is very important to understand the relationship between society/nature, because today there is no natural area that has not suffered human influence, through of anthropic action on the natural environment. The environmental diagnoses are oriented to know the operation mechanisms of the most diverse environments. The zonification, gains prominence, because it represents a complex study, where diverse variables are analyzed. The zoning model for the management of an environment depends on the objectives and the type of indicators and interactions used in the analysis. The geoenvironmental works are based on the identification and characterization of the natural and/or anthropic environment, with the perspective of the rational use of the geographical space. The objective of this work was analyse the variables that constitute the environment and develop a geoenvironmental zoning proposal for the Santa Maria Basin River (SMBR), to define areas with environmental potentialities and fragilities. Through an integrated analysis was possible to characterize the basic elements of environment and how they are observed in the physiography, land use and occupation. Using the analytical cartography and analysis-integration interpretation, allowed the characterization of the Geoenvironmental Zoning. The SMBR was divided into 07 systems and 12 geoenvironmental units, with the respective potentialities and susceptibilities. The potentialities of BHRSM are related to agricultural production, while, the susceptibilities are related to the damages that production causes when is developed in an environmentally incorrect manner.