Environmental diagnosis and impacts on the ciliary vegetation of the watershed of the stream bridge, area of environmental protection, Iguatemi River, MS

Abstract

The exploitation of natural resources has been widely questioned in recent decades and much has been discussed about environmental conservation and restoration of degraded ecosystems. Knowing that the preservation of riparian forests is essential for the balance and protection of ecosystems, the present work aimed at making the environmental diagnosis in the watershed around the Stream Bridge, MS, determining the number and area of forest fragments, estimating the area to be reforested. The environmental diagnosis was performed with technical visits to the study area and the estimation of how many fragments was carried out in the upper stream, considering 30 m of left and right margins. The environmental diagnosis revealed that several impacts happened in the watershed, for example, uncontrolled urban settlement on the banks of the stream, dump gallery rain, lack of riparian vegetation required in the spring, cattle trampling, installation of fish farming tanks and soil prepared for planting in the area of permanent protection and erosion. There were ten fragments of riparian forest with an area ranging from 1.60 to 25.34 ha. The legal riparian area should be equivalent to 274.26 hectares. However, only 89.06 ha were found to correspond to the sum of the areas of the fragments, totaling a percentage of only 32.5%. The advanced state of degradation of the riparian aquatic ecosystem was observed, since, from the legal riparian area, 67.5% has been degraded. Thus, 185.2 ha need to be reforested as a conservation measure for this spring.