Delimitação de unidades da paisagem do litoral setentrional potiguar e adjacências

Abstract

Geography is characterized by being a science endowed with an ample capacity of apprehension of knowledge of the world. Being situated at a crossroads between the basic and applied sciences, on the one hand, and natural and social, on the other, it seeks to work at its core with the complex, dynamic and eminent relationship between man and nature. Since the classical thinkers, for example, Alexander Von Humboldt and Élisée Reclus, this (systemic/ integrated) thinking permeates the basic studies that ended up being responsible for the epistemological enrichment of geographic science. However, the extreme specialization of Geography, based mainly on the dichotomy between Physical and Human Geography, weakened its theoretical field in the XIX and XX centuries, which came to be overcome, even from the same century, by the return of systemic thinking, through new formulations such as the General Theory of Systems proposed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy. This theory was the background for the geosystemic conception, founded by Viktor Sochava and Georges Bertrand, who allied himself with the concept of landscape for the formulation of a Global Physical Geography, which is intrinsically linked to the objects of study of this dissertation. Here, as a fundamental parameter, Bertrand and Souza reflections on the characteristics of this delimitation of landscape units. Based on this perspective, this study aimed to elaborate the delimitation of landscape units of the Northern Coast of the state of Rio Grande do Norte and Adjacent Areas. Using a methodology oriented by the physical/physiognomic aspects of the studied area, it was tried to work with the scale of 1:50,000, in which the taxonomy of the geofacies was prioritized. Therefore, geoprocessing and remote sensing techniques were used, by means of the cartographic data vectorization and high resolution images, together with fieldwork. As definitive results, it is important to emphasize, first, the detailed characterization of the physical aspects of the entire delimited area. In addition, mapping was performed of 17 (seventeen) geofacies, which were analyzed, regarding their physical characteristics, as well as in pointing out their potentialities, fragilities and peculiarities.