Hazards and Vulnerability for the population on the
Brazilian Coast:
Sea Level Rise and Reasons for Concern
Roberto Luiz do Carmo
Andrea Ferraz Young
Universidade Estadual de Campinas
Departamento de Demografia
Núcleo de Estudos de População
The 4th International Conference on Population Geographies
The Chinese University of Hong Kong - July 10/13, 2007
Recife, PE
Objectives
* Identify the possible impacts of sea level
rising for the Brazilian population leaving
on coastal zone;
- how many people leaving on the coast?
- life conditions;
- environmental characteristics;
- vulnerability;
Juréia, SP
Methodology
* GIS system
- demographic information: Census Data
- life conditions and environment: Census Data
and HDI (municipal level, supported by UNDP);
- Digital maps: IBGE (Brazilian Census Bureau);
Juréia, SP
Remarks
* Relationships between population and environment:
• administrative X environmental regionalization;
* Scales
• time;
• spatial references and capture of information;
Juréia, SP
Vulnerability
“vulnerability cannot be directly measured, but
estimated through a group of socioeconomic and
environmental variables. Vulnerability refers to a
certain type of risk and region. It is the result of
the relationship of a series of circumstantial
factors of a quantitative and qualitative order”
(Peduzzi et al., 2001).
Santos, SP
• Vulnerability Project (NEPO/UNICAMP)
- the ability to respond to these risks (which may be of
very different kinds, relating to social and economic
situations in addition to the environmental ones) is
fundamental to understand the different contexts
resulting from risk exposure. The ability to respond
has been considered as vulnerability;
- the ability (or inability) of a social group to mobilize a
given asset group implies that this group may be more
or less vulnerable to a certain risk (or group of risks);
Santos, SP
* In terms of mobilizable assets, Kaztman et al. (1999) suggest the
following classification:
- Physical Capital: involving all the essential means for the pursuit
of well-being. These could be further divided into the Physical
Capital itself (housing, land, machinery, animals, relevant durable
goods for social reproduction) or the Financial Capital, whose
characteristics are high liquidity and multifunctionality, involving
savings and credit as well as forms of insurance and protection;
- Human Capital: including work as the main asset plus the value
added to it through investments in health and education, which
would imply in greater or lesser physical capacity for work,
qualifications and so on;
- Social Capital: including the networks of reciprocity, trust,
contacts and access to information. In the authors’ words it would
be “the least alienable of all the types of capital, whose use
strongly overlaps and is limited by the very network of
relationships that defines this form of capital”
Santos, SP
The Geographic Information System
• 477 seaside municipalities (5.562 total Brazil);
• 34,3 million people in the year 2000 (20 km buffer);
Ubatuba,SP
Ubatuba,SP
Ubatuba,SP
Juréia, SP
Recife, PE
Marajó, PA
Some Results by Regions
Categories: differences by size
Number of Inhabitants
< 5.000
5.000 to 20.000
20.000 to 50.000
50.000 to 100.000
100.000 to 500.000
> 500.000
Recife, PE
Population leaving in the 20km buffer
REGION
1980
1991
2000
North
252.186
435.924
660.611
5,10
4,73
11.192.873 14.436.364
3,19
2,87
10.736.757 12.799.693 14.546.613
1,61
1,43
4.670.458
2,61
2,38
21.757.080 28.209.552 34.314.046
2,39
2,20
Northeast
Southeast
Soul
Total
7.920.904
2.847.233
3.781.062
1980/91
1991/00
João Pessoa, PA
Roberto Luiz do Carmo
[email protected]
Marajó, PA
João Pessoa, PA
João Pessoa, PA
Marajó, PA
Marajó, PA