Kineros is a runoff-erosion model used to compute runoff and sediment yield in urban and rural basins. In this paper, the model was applied to the Pirapama river basin, located in the coastal zone of the State of Pernambuco. The obtained results were linked to a GIS in order to temporally and spatially identify the areas susceptible to the erosion process within the Pirapama river basin. The model was calibrated with daily rainfall data from two raingauges for the period from 1990 to 2001. From the coupling of the modeling results into a GIS, it was possible to identify the main areas susceptible to the erosion process. The sediment yield results showed that the planes with the largest erosion yield produced more than 200 t ha-1 year-1 (653,079 t in an area of 67.87 km², 11.3% of the total area). These results also showed that a large part of the basin is indeed susceptible to the erosion process. This study shows that the Kineros model is applicable to basins larger than 100 km² and that its coupling to a GIS proved useful to identify and analyze the main areas with sediment yield within the basin. Thus, the model can be considered as a promising tool for simulation of the sediment yield in basins in northeastern Brazil.
modeling; Kineros; physically-based model; Pirapama Basin
