The efficiency of conservation land-use planning in small watersheds depends, in part, on the suitability of the scale used. Sources of erosion and their distribution in the study area should be sufficiently uniform in order to allow general recommendations, directly linked to its origin, and simple for farmers to understand. The objective of this study was to evaluate rill, interrill, ephemeral gully and gully erosion intensities, along with their spatial distribution in 1995/96, in the Ceveiro Watershed (1,990 ha) located in Piracicaba, SP, Brazil. The frequency of gully and ephemeral gully erosion was 11% of the total erosion, and its distribution was different from the other types of erosion. Thus, the strategies of land-use planning should be different for each source of erosion, and in all cases, priority areas should be defined.
rill; interrill and gully erosion; watershed; spatial distribution
