Mudanças climáticas globais, eventos hidroclimáticos extremos e gestão adaptativa local: pesquisa-ação na cidade de Novo Airão/AM

Abstract

Global climate change can generate effects at different scales and comprise one of the greatest challenges of this century, being one of the central planetary boundaries. Among its consequences are the increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events, which are characterized by uncertainty and have effects on regional and local scales. In the Amazon, in the last two decades, there have been frequent extreme events, mainly related to changes in regional hydrology. Considered as extreme hydroclimatic events, these events generate adverse effects on the socioecological dynamics of Amazonian cities, such as Novo Airão in Amazonas, where vulnerabilities are central points of attention for the construction of coherent and fair adaptive responses. Extreme events impact socio-ecological systems characterized by complexity, uncertainties, and unpredictability, making it difficult to produce information about predicting their functioning and future behavior. Thus, there is a need to analyze local responses to extreme events and eventually adapt them or build new generic and specific responses together with stakeholders. For this, adaptive management presents itself as a timely management approach for managing socio-ecological systems in facing extreme events, as it incorporates continuous adaptations and adjustments in its process to deal with changing contexts and uncertainties. This approach is marked by building adaptive capacity, generating new knowledge, and shared understandings through experiential learning, and governance mechanisms. Therefore, this research aimed to investigate how the process of experiential learning with institutional actors in the urban system of Novo Airão can be established to support the emergence of local adaptive management actions against extreme hydroclimatic events through the action research method. Through dialogue, identification of the adverse effects of extreme events, and co-creation of guidelines for adaptive management with the participating institutional actors. For this purpose, conventional techniques of qualitative research such as semi-structured interviews were used, as well as interactive techniques such as participatory workshops with different dialogical resources, which allowed processes of reflection and creativity for the construction of strategies. Among the main results is a participatory mapping of risk areas in the city, which shows vulnerable residents of igarapés areas. Understanding that these extreme events affect housing, water for consumption, local tourism, fishing, logistics and not only the city but the Urban-Ribeirinho relationship. The adaptive guidelines elaborated by the participating institutional actors guide the construction of social networks for addressing actions, the search for more research and studies on local issues, as well as raising funds for the execution of projects.