Eventos de precipitações extremas e suas repercussões na paisagem da bacia hidrográfica do Rio Potengi-RN

Abstract

Precipitation is the most important climatic variable when it is intended to understand the dynamics of the surface structure of the landscape and the consequences for different human activities. The events capable of causing major changes in the system are the extremes, defined by atypically high or low values considering an interval of observations. The Potengi River Basin, the study area, is located in Rio Grande do Norte and covers 18 municipalities, including the state capital. The methodology is based on quantitative procedures and techniques, such as kriging (spatialization) and Gumbel (return time) methods, in addition to qualitative analysis, in the definition of landscape units. The results show that there is a significant spatio-temporal variation in rainfall in the different compartments. Regarding the maximum events, it was possible to verify that climatological phenomena of precipitation with high magnitude are frequent in a short period of time. Finally, landscape units were defined (Barlavento da Borborema, Piemonte Semiárido, Piemonte Agreste do Potengi e Tabuleiros Costeiros Semiúmidos), using precipitation as the main limiting element.