Angelise Vieira Mendes,Marcela Vilar Sampaio,Renato Grando,Silvana Fernandes Neto, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Engenharia Florestal, marcelavilars@yahoo.com.br
The occupation of Brazil was characterized by lack of planning and consequent destruction of natural resources. The riparian forests, which act as filters in the maintenance of the watercourses were also affected, increasing the quantity and quality of available water. Given the context, this study was developed in the headwater areas of the catchment dams Rodolfo Costa e Silva Brito and Saturnino, the municipality of Santa Maria in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, and intends to contribute to sustainable development, providing support to planning activities, using tools of GIS to analyze environmental data. It began with the study of mosaic georeferenced aerial photography of the area, from the Geographical Information System IDRISI 32. The study area has 620.58 hectares, from the set through the scan (on screen), as well as land uses (agriculture, forestry and poultry), drainage network and the delimitation of the springs (eight). In general it can be seen that the springs are in poor condition, since the environmental legislation recommended total forest protection within a radius of 50 meters around it. Still, agriculture occupies much of the influence of springs (48.10%), and it occupies (26.68%), and poultry with (25.22%).
Keywords: Land use, Geographic Information System, Environmental Study