Land use capacity of the lower Rio Grande river basin (Minas Gerais, Brazil) aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the land use capacity of the lower Rio Grande (LRG) river basin in Minas Gerais, Brazil. For this purpose, the pedological map prepared by Embrapa, at a scale of 1:500,000, available on the GeoInfo platform – Spatial Data Infrastructure, was used, in addition to the digital elevation model (DEM) in raster format, provided by the Copernicus space program. In the QGIS 3.38 software, the following processes were performed: clipping of the BRG area, and preparation of the slope map and the soil class map. Subsequently, the QGIS intersection tool was applied to superimpose the slope map on the soil class map, which resulted in the definition of the land use capacity of the BRG. The results indicated that the predominant soil class is Red Latosols (RL), which occupy 39.37% of the total area of the BRG. The slope class with the largest area is flat, corresponding to 54.12% of the region. Regarding land use capacity, class I stood out, with 42.47% of the area, followed by class IIe, with 36.41%, and class IIIe, with 13.29% of the total area. Thus, the study demonstrated that 92.17% of the total area of the BRG belongs to group A, including classes I, II, III and IV, which makes it suitable for most agricultural crops.