Environmental impact assessment on the Paranaíba River APP and inferences for mitigation

Abstract

Riparian vegetation plays a fundamental role in the drainage network, stabilizing margins, forming ecological corridors, protecting biodiversity and water sources, and also regulating the flow of water and nutrients. This paper aimed to evaluate the main environmental impacts existing in the riparian forest of ​​the Paranaíba river (urban perimeter), in the municipality of Patos de Minas and to point out inferences for impact mitigation and environmental recovery of degraded areas. For this, the adapted Leopold's matrix was used in order to assess the environmental impacts regarding its main attributes and interferences in the physical, biotic and anthropic environments. The most frequent negative impacts, of anthropic origin, identified in the riparian forest of the Paranaíba River were: erosion/silting, presence of exotic/invasive species, release of effluents and disposal of solid waste. The factors that most impacted the physical environment, with high magnitude and high importance for the aspects considered were: the disposal of solid waste and thinning. Of the impacts observed, those that most affected the biotic environment correspond to fire, the presence of exotic species, thinning and the release of effluents, with high magnitude and high importance for the attributes of this environment. Concerning the anthropic environment, the impacts with greater relevance due to the high magnitude and high importance for all attributes analyzed for this environment were: the release of effluents, absence of an efficient final dissipator for urban drainage and thinning. The results found point to the need for mitigation of environmental impacts and recovery of areas where there was greater evidence of environmental degradation.