Identificação de áreas vulneráveis à degradação da APA carste de Lagoa Santa por meio de mapeamento e ranqueamento de fatores determinantes

Abstract

The karst regions occupy about 15% of the earth's surface and, in Brazil, the karst of Lagoa Santa-MG is one of the richest regions in natural resources, in addition to housing caves and fossils of animal specimens. The focus of this article is to rank theareas which are at risk of degradation in the region of APA Carste in Lagoa Santa, focusing on the historical-cultural aspects of archeology and paleontology, generating a synthesis map of vulnerability of this region to assist in decision making for its preservation. For this, the multicriteria ranking method was used, in which the determining factors were chosen. They were ranked in order of importance and the information was crossed with representative cartography to determine the areas at the most risk of to environmental degradation. The ranking method proved to be valid to assist in decision makingfor environmental protection. However, some aspects were limiting: the software for generating specific data and the absence of more current and accurate base maps, since APA Carste dates back to 1998.