Environmental Disasters in Northeast Brazil: Hydrometeorological, Social and Sanitary Factors

Abstract

The occurrence of environmental disasters affects different social segments, impacting health, education, housing, economy and the provision of basic services. Thus, the objective of this study was to estimate the relationship between the occurrence of disasters and extreme climate, sociosanitary and demographic conditions in the Northeast region of Brazil during the period from 1993 to 2013. Initially, we analyzed the spatial pattern of the incidence of events and, subsequently, generalized additive models for location, scale and shape were used in order to identify and estimate the magnitude of associations between factors. Results showed that droughts are the predominant disasters in the NEB representing 81.1% of the cases, followed by events triggered by excessive rainfall such as flash floods (11.1%) and floods (7.8%). Climate conditions presented statistically significant associations with the analyzed disasters, in which indicators of excess rainfall positively contributed to the occurrence of flash floods and floods, but negatively contributed to the occurrence of drought. Sociosanitary factors, such as percentage of households with inadequate sewage, waste collection and water supply, were also positively associated with the model’s estimations, i.e., contributing to an increase in the occurrence of events, with the exception of floods, which were not significantly influenced by sociosanitary parameters. A decrease of 19% in the risk of drought occurrence was estimated, on average. On the other hand, events caused by excessive rainfall increased by 40% and 57%, in the cases of flash floods and floods, respectively.

Profiling sociodemographic attributes and extreme precipitation events as mediators of climate-induced disasters in municipalities in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil

“…Many studies have identified a gradual increase in temperature and changes in rainfall patterns across multiple Brazilian regions, accompanied by an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events (Marengo and Bernasconi, 2015;Ávila et al, 2016;Lyra et al, 2017;Oliveira et al, 2017;Zilli et al, 2017;Fernandes and Rodrigues, 2018;Bezerra et al, 2019;Da Silva et al, 2019;Avila-Diaz et al, 2020;Dunn et al, 2020;Rodrigues et al, 2020Rodrigues et al, , 2021Costa et al, 2021). Moreover, most climateinduced disasters in Brazil are associated with extreme rainfall events (CEPED, 2013c;Rodrigues et al, 2020;Ribeiro et al, 2021;Palharini et al, 2022), and the consequences of these events are highly dependent on the vulnerability and response capacity of affected areas.…”

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EDUCATIONAL ASPECTS AND ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES (SMEs) FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIAL DISASTERS IN BANDA ACEH

“…The effects of a disaster event are effects on society, the environment, geology, social vulnerability, economic vulnerability, psychological effects and inadequate response capacity (Chmutina and von Meding, 2019;UNODRR, 2020). These events involve natural and social processes that affect society according to the patterns of interaction between disaster events and social organizations (Ribeiro et al, 2021). Environmental disasters such as disease cycles will also result in major economic losses and negatively affect the provision of essential services.…”