The present work had as objective to divide the sub-basin of the Low Piracicaba River (SP, Brazil) in homogeneous units in order to evaluate the erosion potential aiming to subsidize the environmental management. The importance of this research is due to the intense development of the erosive processes in the area, and its socio-economic importance. The adopted procedure was the analysis of the drainage network and the lineaments obtained from TM/Landsat-5 images. The result was the division of the area in four compartments considering potentiality to the erosion: very high; high; medium and low. It was concluded that the studied area is heterogeneous, with regions presenting different intensities of erosive processes and that the adopted methodology was enough to characterize the landscape compartimentation of the erosive potentiality and these can and must be used as inputs for the environmental management under the principles of the sustainable development.
homologous zones; lineament; TM/Landsat-5 image
