THE MIGRATION OF MEANDERS IN THE JURUÁ RIVER NEIGHBORHOOD AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR URBAN WATER MANAGEMENT IN CARAUARI/AM

Abstract

The riverside cities of the Amazon developed their way of life based on the characteristics of the local river dynamics, within a common context for all of them: the precarious governmental social and environmental assistance. Few or nonexistent are the works that characterize and evaluate these cities in an integrated context of life and their water resources. Thus, the present work aims to analyze the migration of meanders in a stretch of the lower Juruá river, around the headquarters of the municipality of Carauari / AM. For this purpose, images from the Landsat 5 and 8 satellites were used, in the years 1984 and 2018, in order to evaluate the changes that occurred in the course of the Juruá River for this period. The current situation of water resources in the urban area of ​​the municipality was also assessed, highlighting the main current problems regarding sanitation conditions. The analysis of the migration of meanders showed that the section of the studied river goes through processes of expansion, rotation and translation of the meandrical curves, which caused in the study period cut of a peduncle. In terms of sanitation, the abandoned meander that originates the lake in front of the city continues to receive untreated domestic effluents from the urban area of ​​the city, which can lead to eutrophication and physical-chemical changes in the water. Thus, there is a constant need for data production to assess, in an integrated way, the stability of water systems, with a view to understanding these environments and their behavior through human activities, especially in the most neglected areas.