About#

The APCAC (Áreas Prioritárias para Conservação de Água, or Priority Areas for Water Conservation) method is being developed as part of a large-scale effort for water and ecological conservation in the Cerrado biome, a critical region in central Brazil.

The Cerrado Biome#

The Cerrado is a biome that contains the headwaters of most major Brazilian rivers, including the Rio São Francisco, which supplies water to the densely populated northeast, as well as rivers feeding southern dams and power systems. Its hydrological influence even extends toward the Amazon basin.

At the same time, the region faces intense pressures from deforestation, agricultural expansion, and irrigation systems, making strategic water management essential for Brazil.

Hydrological Importance#

The APCAC method uses GIS at multiple scales, down to 30-meter resolution, to classify catchments based on hydrological importance, which measures the relative infiltration potential of each catchment.

Valleys, plateaus, slopes, soil, geology, and climate variables are considered to determine how much water a catchment can retain. Prioritization also accounts for the current land use, distinguishing predominantly natural from predominantly anthropic catchments, and considers risk factors such as recent entropization, erosion, and degradation proxies (e.g., slope, erodibility).

Classification scale#

The method applies these analyses to Brazil’s most detailed catchment dataset (BHO5K), which includes up to 200,000 features.

Each catchment receives a full suite of attributes, which can then be upscaled to coarser maps for broader analyses.

Raster maps form the base for this analysis, with zonal statistics applied to catchments, ensuring consistent, reproducible, and scalable prioritization.

More Resources#

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