ANÁLISE DA DISTRIBUIÇÃO DOS HIDRANTES URBANOS NO MUNICÍPIO DO NATAL/RN ATRAVÉS DO ESTIMADOR DE DENSIDADE KERNEL.

The existence of fire hydrants in cities is of paramount importance in fighting, mainly to ensure water supply in vehicle stank sused by the fire department. In this sense, the present study a imed to analyse the distribution of such equipment in the south, east and West administrative areas of the city of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte (RN). In the first stage, the equipment was located through the Street View tool Google Earth software. The geographical coordinates were obtained through the Earth view mode and then, conferred in place through satellite navigation device (GPS - Global Positioning System). They were located and recorded 110 hydrants in the three regions. These records, using ArcGIS 9.3 software, was generated a vector file points and through ortofotocartas in scale 1:2000, the geographical location of each piece of equipment was adjusted and converted to projection Universal Transverse Mercator in SAD69 Datum and Zone 25 South. As spatial distribution analysis method, we used the kernel density estimator. The result observed was a geometrically irregular distribution of hydrants in the three administrative areas analysed, with some areas with great concentration and others with total lack of equipment. Thus, the use of this integrated tool to Geographic Information System - GIS proved to beuseful for the spatial location of hydrant sand to guide planning for the installation of new equipment in unmet areas, since it is essential equipment for human security and protect public and private property during fire fighting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]