Áreas de vulnerabilidade ambiental em Natal/RN, Brasil: análise da Zona de Proteção Ambiental 9 (ZPA 9)

Abstract

Modern society lives with the constant feeling of being surrounded by risks, especially those resident populations of the emerging and underdeveloped countries, where many individuals and family groups settle in physically and environmentally unstable areas, amplifying existing environmental damages or leading to the occurrence of disasters. Thus, the present research aims to identify and analyze the environmental vulnerability areas of the Environmental Protection Zone 9, which is located in the Northern Administrative Zone of the city of Natal / RN. This objective was outlined taking into account the fact that ZPA 9 is one of the five unregulated Environmental Zones of the municipality, which leads to real estate speculation and a disorderly urban advance along the Rio Doce and adjacent dunes and lagoons, which are areas that are vulnerable and permanently preserved according to the Natal Master Plan and the New Forest Code. The research was based on the research in Veyret (2007), Beck (1986), Gregory (1992), and Marandola and Hogan (2004; 2006), bibliographies that were published in the Central Library of UFRN (BCZM) and the CAPES portal. deal with the concepts of risk, danger and vulnerability, and how they are operationalized within Geographic science. Data and information were obtained from organs such as IBGE, INMET, EMBRAPA, CPRM and SEMURB. In order to identify the areas of vulnerability, the methodology of Crepani et al. (2001), based on the Ecodinâmica de Tricart (1977), was used to classify the areas of risk and degree of vulnerability of the geoenvironmental units according to the morphodynamic processes, which are represented by the Information Plans (IPs), which when overlaid provide the Environmental Vulnerability Index, represented by the RGB color classification. Thus, applying the index to the final map, it was observed in ZPA 9 that the areas on the yellow to red scale on the map are the most vulnerable, corresponding to the urban areas, the slopes of the Rio Doce valley and the dunes with or without vegetation. The areas in progress from blue to green correspond to low and medium means of vulnerability that can be explained by shrub restinga vegetation, low slope and altimetry, and by the not so densely populated urban occupation.