Relief changes generated by the urbanization process: urban geomorphology case studyin the neighborhood Recreio dos Bandeirantes - Rio Janeiro (RJ)..

In Brazil, urbanization and industrialization processes were intensified from the 1930s onwards, in order to meet global economic demands that required an industrialized and modernized country. Soon after the capital transference to Brasília, the then State of Guanabara, ruled by Negrão Lima (1965-1971), expanded its urban fabric to the West Zone, considered as a rural area of ​​the Sertão Carioca, at the time. Thus, urbanist Lúcio Costa produced the first territorial plan for the Baixada de Jacarepaguá, in which he included the neighborhood of Recreio dos Bandeirantes. The landscape changes, including the geomorphological aspects, were striking and such transformations provoke studies of urban geomorphology and its anthropogenic effects.

Anthropogenic geomorphology’s studies are marked by the speed of human action on the earth-system, in a historical time scale: “the time that is made” (SUERTEGARAY and NUNES, 2001). Therefore, such studies, associated with this branch, such as urban geomorphology allow managers to analyze the problems arising from urbanization, since they analyze the change in natural dynamics, products of the peculiar way in which urbanization processes take place in “developing countries”. From the moment that there is occupation and intense use of the soil, the (re)organization of the natural environment starts to present strong anthropogenic influences, which act, even, as geomorphological and, consequently, environmental agents.

The present research work has as its main objective to evaluate geomorphological features alteration, caused by the urbanization process in the neighborhood of Recreio dos Bandeirantes. To this end, specific objectives are defined: to present the changes in geomorphological processes resulting from human action and to identify the impacts on geomorphology, resulting from this urbanization dynamic.

The methodology of the research work starts from a historical reconstruction of the most recent process of urbanization in the study area (2009 to 2021), through the use of retrospective geomorphological cartography, via the use of Google Earth images and aerial photographs of that period, allowing comparative analysis between pre-urban geomorphology (RODRIGUES, 2010) and current geomorphology (period of consolidated urbanization). The cartographic products were used in the visual analysis of landscape changes over historical time and cumulative to the bibliographic research, regarding the area's urbanization plans and fieldwork.

The most prominent changes in satellite images’ historical series clearly reveal the transformations of geomorphological features of coastal formations in the region, such as eradication of dunes, channeling of swamps and lagoons and channel straightening, especially by urban agents, which in this context, are also exogenous geomorphological agents.

         As developments, studies on the evolution of the neighborhood and on the consequences of changes in landforms and their consequent environmental impacts are still oriented. Finally, the role of the State, supposedly regulating in this context, is also questioned.