Sustainable planning geotechnologies for fish farming expansion in small municipalities: a case study of Pato Bragado/PR-Brazil

Using geotechnologies has become fundamental for planning the sustainable expansion of agricultural activities, especially fish farming. The objective of this work was to map and carry out the morphological characterization of the hydrographic micro-basins and their physical aspects, such as slope, altimetry, and land use and occupation, and also to quantify and locate the existing excavated ponds in the municipality of Pato Bragado, in Paraná State. Geotechnology tools and images generated by the free software QGIS and Google Earth were used to create maps of the excavated ponds' physical aspects, quantification, classification, and location. The predominant slope in the municipality is gently undulating, and soy plantation uses 42.99% of the municipality's entire area. The mapping located 190 excavated ponds. Depth measurement was not carried out, but rather mapping concerning water depths representing a total area of 47.86 ha of water blade and nine micro-basins within the municipality of Pato Bragado, with only the Arroio Fundo micro-basin covering 47.37% of all existing excavated ponds. The morphometric indicators concluded that the micro-basins present a minimum risk of flooding, which is ideal for use in fish farming. Making the results of this work available to public managers and fish farmers aims to demonstrate the importance of using geotechnologies for sustainable planning to expand aquaculture activities, which, in this case, are focused on fish farming.