Bank erosion causes destruction of the area near the river, contributes to the degradation of large areas and causes catastrophic effects on the environment as well as a rupture of the environmental balance. This research was developed to quantify bank erosion rates, from February 1999 to July 2000 and to study the possible causes of the process. For the San Francisco River the pins and pegs methods were used to measure the erosive rate, with the successive profiling being used to describe the erosive process. The annual rates of bank erosion obtained in the three sections were 8.30m (sectionA); 47.30m (sectionB) and 4.45m (sectionC). As for erosion variation, the association of climatic and hydrological data - wind speed, monthly amplitude quota, maximum monthly quota and the speed flux near the edge - were the factors that most influenced the erosive process. Erosion variation was also influenced by the soil texture, forming the edge and height of the palisade.
bank erosion; environmental degradation; environmental impact