Integrated Environmental Risk Management in Municipal Areas: A Geographic Information Systems Approach to Promote Environmental Security
Geoprocessing; Integrated Management; Flood Risk; Erosion Vulnerability; Territorial Planning.
The effectiveness of risk mitigation is directly linked to the ability to conceive, visualize, and evaluate the complex of hazards collectively. In this context, the development and testing of individual and collective environmental safety risk maps, encompassing phenomena such as floods, droughts, forest fires, land use conflicts, deforestation, and desertification, allow for the visualization of the spatial distribution of these risks. This work developed an integrated diagnosis of environmental risks in the municipality of Moreno, Pernambuco, with the objective of supporting territorial planning and promoting environmental safety in the face of extreme events. The methodology used a systemic perspective based on Geoprocessing, integrating the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to identify areas prone to flooding and Crepani's Ecodynamics Theory to analyze natural vulnerability to soil erosion. The processing in a GIS environment incorporated high-resolution morphometric variables, obtained from the Pernambuco Tridimensional Program (PE3d), in addition to lithopedological, climatic, and land use and land cover data, using the MapBiomas platform. Flood mapping revealed that a vast area of the territory is at high risk, severely impacting the urban structure. Erosion assessment highlighted the prevalence of middle-class vulnerability, influenced by the flat terrain of the Mares de Morros region and the pressure from agriculture. The merging of the models revealed a situation of ecological tension, highlighting a critical overlap between considerable hydrological risks and soil instability in a large portion of the municipal territory. Uncontrolled urban growth and improper land use intensify the possibility of disasters, demanding the immediate implementation of management focused on multiple risks and the updating of the municipal Master Plan to include areas for mitigation and environmental recovery.