Environmental integrity preliminary assessment of valley bottoms

ABSTRACT

Urban growth has a significant impact on natural environments, particularly in valley bottom areas. This paper aimed to elaborate a tool for the preliminary assessment of the environmental integrity of valley bottoms in order to provide preliminary support to managers of public administration in the diagnosis and decision-making to intervene in these areas. Therefore, we chose environmental indicators and the tool was applied to assess the environmental situation of two valley bottoms located in the city of Maringá, Paraná State, Mandacaru and Betty streams. The indicators were selected using literature as references and underwent the assessment of 30 professionals who work in drainage projects or environmental management, so that they attributed weights according to the relevance of the indicator to assess the environmental condition of valley bottoms located in medium-sized cities, with consolidated urbanization and infrastructure. At the end of the application of indicators, the rate of compliance with the proposed indicators (I) was calculated. To characterize the two valley bottoms, which are the fields of study, thematic maps were prepared and we consulted published studies on the region and conducted fieldworks. The Mandacaru stream presented services to the proposed indicators (I) equal to 35.88% and the Betty stream was equal to 43.20%. Both streams have their environmental condition classified as poor, according to the applied methodology.

Keywords:
environmental indicators; urban water rivers; management of urban rivers; valley bottoms