Socio-Environmental Vulnerability to Drought in the Seridó Potiguar, Brazil: Building Indicators

• Autor(a) principal: de Brito, Anderson Geová Maia
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: de Almeida, Lutiane Queiroz
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Sociedade & natureza (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://seer.ufu.br/index.php/sociedadenatureza/article/view/67826
• topic: Seca; Vulnerabilidade; Semiárido; Seridó Potiguar; Drought; Vulnerability; Semi-arid; Serido Potiguar

Imprecise in space-time and with damaging effects, drought as a historical-natural phenomenon of high complexity has been afflicting the population of the Seridó Potiguar Region, located in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Northeast Brazil. For centuries, the region, of state relevance, is part of the Brazilian semiarid region. This reality produces socio-spatial, socio-economic, and political-institutional conflicts. Considering this, and the fact that drought in the 21st century continues to reach disastrous proportions and cause harm to human systems, this research aimed to offer a partial overview of the socio-environmental vulnerability of the Seridó region to drought, focusing on seven key municipalities: Bodó, Caicó, Currais Novos, Ipueira, Jardim de Piranhas, Jucurutu, and Parelhas. The Drought Vulnerability Index (DVI) was applied to these municipalities, composed of the sub-indices of Exposure, Susceptibility, and Adaptive Capacity, based on socio-economic and physical-environmental variables, which were calculated, classified, and cartographically represented using the RGB color composition. After analyzing the results, it was found that the municipalities ranged from low to moderate vulnerability, which can be justified by the compensation between the variables themselves and the good indicators regarding social assistance, mixed economy, hydraulic infrastructure, and means of coping with the semiarid region.