Characterization of capacity of the use of a watershed land, interior of the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil

The planning of land use is very important because its misuse, impoverishes it, causing lower crop productivity. The study aimed to use geotechnology determining subclasses of land use capacity in a watershed, aiming future contributions in the environmental management process and in decision-making by the Public Administrators. The watershed has an area of 3,796.6 ha and is located between the parallel 22 degrees 40' 30" to 22 degrees 49' 16" S latitude and 48 degrees 17' 21" to 48 degrees 21' 45". longitude The result showed that the most significant subclass was IIIs, and and the areas with undulated relief were representative (48.22%). the use capacity subclasses IIIs, IIIs, IVs and and occupied 88.99% of the area, showing the great potential of use for annual crops, perennial, pastures and or reforestation. the GIS proved to be an excellent tool in determining the land use capability, demonstrating that the use of GIS facilitates and expedites the crossing of digital data, allowing storage, which can be used for further analysis in future geo-environmental planning.