Estudo com materiais alternativos aplicados como mantas em barragens subterrâneas

The water is an essential element of life and its scarcity is a major problem faced by regions such as the Northeastern Semi-arid. This scarcity impairs the coexistence of man with the rural environment, being this resource essential for human consumption, animal and food production, the need arises to find ways of storing this resource. One of the alternatives to solve this problem is the underground dam, which has the function of storing water underground. Aiming to capture water through a low cost and efficiency, a study was made on the use of blankets in the water interception. It was then analyzed how a synthetic blanket of Geotextile and a natural carnauba blanket would behave in the water retention through the study of permeability of the soil-blanket set. A visit was made to Serra da Madalena farm, located in the city of Francisco do Oeste - RN, where nine samples were collected. The soils collected consisted of three types, in the first three samples the soil was more clayey, in the other three the soil was richer in organic matter and the last three samples were sandier. These samples were analyzed together with the blankets in the Laboratory of Applied Chemistry of UFERSA - Pau dos Ferros. The mechanism used to obtain the hydraulic conductivity was the experimental variable load permeameter, which resulted in a better performance of geotextile synthetic fabric spreads water in relation to the blanket natural carnauba. Thus, the study was valid to check the behavior of blankets that have not been used for water retention purposes.