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Abstract: Droughts make up a dominant reality and present until the present day with the same intensity the past, representing a social disaster since the seventeenth century. In the semiarid region of Northeast, droughts, while physical phenomenon constitutes a disaster of natural order. The impacts of semiaridez represent centuries, a framework of risk to its population. The lack of efficient management increases the risk of threats, falling directly in the process of social construction of risk, ie, the consequence of environmental degradation in the region is related to the dependence on natural resources, increasing deforestation, erosion and loss of soil fertility, siltation of waterways and desertification. The research literature is of order, organized through reference works, books of readings currents, articles and journals. The aim is to highlight the importance of knowledge of a risk event to encourage the development of appropriate strategies to prevent or minimize their negative impacts on the development of risk management. Among all vulnerabilities, vulnerability water was the most representative.
Keywords: risk,vulnerability, semiarid
INTRODUCTION
Drought is one of the most common natural phenomena in the world. Centuries have passed, but drought remains a natural disaster. This phenomenon occurs mainly in the semiarid region of northeastern Brazil, due to its water vulnerability associated with the absence of effective public policies, where droughts, with their adverse characteristics, contribute to the construction of social and environmental disasters. In the NEB region (Northeast) temperatures oscillate above climatological normals and the rainy season presents great water deficits, caused by large-scale meteorological systems and ENSO oscillations.
Droughts are considered severe natural phenomena, intensely influenced by physiographic characteristics, such as rock, soil, topography, vegetation and meteorological conditions. When these intense phenomena occur in places where human beings live, they result in damage (material and human) and losses (socioeconomic) and are considered “natural disasters”.
According to Castro (2003), disaster is defined as the result of adverse events, natural or caused by man, on a (vulnerable) ecosystem, causing human, material and/or environmental damage and consequent economic and social damage.
Several authors have demonstrated the increase in the frequency of natural disasters in the world (RODRIGUEZ et al, 2009; VOS et al, 2010) and also in Brazil (KOBIYAMA et al., 2004, 2010). The chronic form of the drought phenomenon is called drought, currently analyzed as one of the natural disasters with the greatest occurrence and impact in the world. This is due to the fact that it occurs over long periods of time, affecting large territorial extensions.
The present work points to the importance of droughts, which over the centuries still remain unresolved, in the absence of the development of strategies that can prevent or minimize their impacts, mainly on the population.
In the Brazilian Northeast, the losses observed in years of “El Niño” involve sectors of the economy (losses in rainfed agriculture, cattle raising, etc.), electricity supply, as well as compromising the water supply for society and the animals. It is noteworthy that the drought is not limited only to the Sertão, it can also affect the eastern sector of the Northeast (Agreste, Zona da Mata and Litoral), if it happens together with the negative South Atlantic Dipole (Negative or unfavorable Dipole, that is, is, when the South Atlantic finds waters cooler than the historical average and warmer waters in the North Atlantic).
This study aims to promote a reflection, in the sense of erasing past statements of: "problem region", noting that the region's vulnerabilities do not result only from the climate phenomenon, but that they were socially constructed, over time, through the agro-export model, configuring a framework of economic stagnation and socio-environmental disruption in the region.
The Brazilian Northeast is recognized as an area highly vulnerable to climatic factors, especially in its semiarid region. Drought is considered a natural disaster, as the impacts of semiaridity represent, for centuries, a risk scenario for the population. Natural disasters are caused by factors related to terrestrial geodynamics or related to meteorological phenomena such as windstorms, droughts, frosts, hailstorms, floods, heat waves, cold waves, drop in relative humidity and others.
Drought is defined by a prolonged period of low or no rainfall, where the loss of soil moisture is greater than its replacement (KOBIYAMA et. al. 2004, p.80).
Among the elements of climate, precipitation is the one that most influences agricultural productivity (ORTOLANI & CAMARGO, 1987), especially in tropical regions where the rainfall regime is characterized by short duration and high intensity events (SANTANA et al. 2007) .
As an essential element in the climate classification of tropical regions, precipitation and its variability associated with other elements of the climate, causes a fluctuation in the general behavior of local climates. Monitoring the rainfall regime in the region in recent years has shown that the scarcity of water resources accentuates socioeconomic problems, particularly at the end of each year, with total rainfall around or below the average for the region (MARENGO & SILVA DIAS, 2006 ).
Molion (1985) argues that to understand the formation of a region's climate it is necessary to consider some fundamental factors such as the general circulation of the atmosphere (result of differential warming between the equator and the poles), the asymmetric distribution of continents and oceans and the hydrological cycle, especially with regard to the distribution of rainfall, as it is also one of the elements with the greatest influence on human activities.
Rainfall is one of the meteorological elements that presents greater variability both in quantity and in monthly and annual distribution from one region to another (ALMEIDA, 2001). According to Aragão (1990), the main reason for the existence of the northeastern semiarid region is the absence of a dynamic mechanism that causes upward movements. Modeling work carried out by Gomes Filho (1979) shows that the topography of the region tends to intensify the subsiding movements over this region, while the differential albedo would not interfere in the results.
One of the main sources of risk in the semi-arid region is directly related to the lack of infrastructure to cope with droughts, that is, a process of self-adjustment to this adverse situation. The social, environmental and economic vulnerabilities of the northeastern semiarid are complex and characterized by several variables: low rainfall, terrain geomorphology, local edaphism and predatory anthropic action. Consequently, all these variables are accentuated by the absence of public policies based on sustainable development, intensifying vulnerabilities.
The Brazilian Northeast is recognized as an area highly vulnerable to climatic factors, especially in its semiarid region. Drought is considered a natural disaster, as the impacts of semiaridity represent, for centuries, a risk scenario for the population. Natural disasters are caused by factors related to terrestrial geodynamics or related to meteorological phenomena such as windstorms, droughts, frosts, hailstorms, floods, heat waves, cold waves, drop in relative humidity and others.
Drought is defined by a prolonged period of low or no rainfall, where the loss of soil moisture is greater than its replacement (KOBIYAMA et. al. 2004, p.80).
Among the elements of climate, precipitation is the one that most influences agricultural productivity (ORTOLANI & CAMARGO, 1987), especially in tropical regions where the rainfall regime is characterized by short duration and high intensity events (SANTANA et al. 2007) .
As an essential element in the climate classification of tropical regions, precipitation and its variability associated with other elements of the climate, causes a fluctuation in the general behavior of local climates. Monitoring the rainfall regime in the region in recent years has shown that the scarcity of water resources accentuates socioeconomic problems, particularly at the end of each year, with total rainfall around or below the average for the region (MARENGO & SILVA DIAS, 2006 ).
Molion (1985) argues that to understand the formation of a region's climate it is necessary to consider some fundamental factors such as the general circulation of the atmosphere (result of differential warming between the equator and the poles), the asymmetric distribution of continents and oceans and the hydrological cycle, especially with regard to the distribution of rainfall, as it is also one of the elements with the greatest influence on human activities.
Rainfall is one of the meteorological elements that presents greater variability both in quantity and in monthly and annual distribution from one region to another (ALMEIDA, 2001). According to Aragão (1990), the main reason for the existence of the northeastern semiarid region is the absence of a dynamic mechanism that causes upward movements. Modeling work carried out by Gomes Filho (1979) shows that the topography of the region tends to intensify the subsiding movements over this region, while the differential albedo would not interfere in the results.
One of the main sources of risk in the semi-arid region is directly related to the lack of infrastructure to cope with droughts, that is, a process of self-adjustment to this adverse situation. The social, environmental and economic vulnerabilities of the northeastern semiarid are complex and characterized by several variables: low rainfall, terrain geomorphology, local edaphism and predatory anthropic action. Consequently, all these variables are accentuated by the absence of public policies based on sustainable development, intensifying vulnerabilities.
Over the past 500 years, the northeast region of Brazil has faced several periods of drought. In this work, we highlight the most serious periods of its occurrences: 1692/1693; 1723/1727; 1744/1745; 1776/1778; 1808/1809; 1824/1825; 1877/1879; 1888/1889; 1903/1904; 1914/1915/1903/1904; 1914/1915; 1919/1921; 1970; 1979/1984; 1988.
Chronological representations of the most severe droughts and their consequences
Time course
Main consequences of the greatest droughts
1723/1727
The drought recorded in this period is intensified by a great pest affecting the captaincy of Pernambuco. According to the historian Frei Vicente do Salvador, there were numerous groups of indigenous people who, fleeing the mountains, advanced on the farms.
1744/1745
During this period, the drought affects the entire population, also decimating livestock.
1776/1778
The drought was intensified by the great smallpox outbreak, which started the previous year and which would last until 1778, causing a high mortality rate. Huge livestock losses. The flagellates were gathered in villages on the banks of the rivers, as determined by the Portuguese Court.
1808/1809
The drought in this period is milder, affecting only Pernambuco, in the São Francisco region, where 500 died for lack of food.
1824/1825
Another period of intense drought, intensified by smallpox, there were several numbers of scourges, causing many deaths in the northeastern region. The fields were sterilized and hunger reached the sugar cane mills.
1879/1887
This period was remarkable, one of the biggest and severe droughts hit the entire Northeast. Ceará, for example, had a population of 800,000 at the time. Of these, 120 thousand (or 15%) migrated to the Amazon and 68 thousand people went to other states.
1888/1889
Great droughts hit the entire population. Crops in Paraíba and Pernambuco were destroyed and villages abandoned.
1903/1904
Large rural exodus, thousands of Northeasterners, victims of droughts, abandon the region. A portion intended for works against droughts was included in the Republic's Budget Law. Three commissions were created to analyze the problem of droughts in the Northeast.
1914/1915
During this period, a great drought hit the entire semi-arid region of the Northeast
1919/1921
There was an intensification of the rural exodus due to severe droughts (with large proportions in the Pernambuco hinterland). The press, public opinion and the National Congress demanded government action. In 1920, the Special Fund for Irrigation Works for Cultivable Lands in the Northeast of Brazil was created, with 2% of the Union's annual tax revenue, in addition to other resources. But effectively, nothing was done to alleviate the drama of the droughts.
1970
Creation of emergency fronts. An alternative for 1.8 million people, as a result of the great droughts that hit the entire Northeast.
1979/1984
The longest and most extensive drought in the history of the Northeast. It affected the entire region, leaving a trail of misery and hunger in all States. During the period, crops were not harvested in an area of almost 1.5 million km2. In Ceará alone, more than a hundred looting was recorded, when legions of hungry workers invaded cities and forcibly snatched food from open-air markets or warehouses. According to data from SUDENE, between 1979/1984, 3.5 million people died in the region, most of them children, from hunger and diseases resulting from malnutrition. A UNESCO survey found that 62% of children in the Northeast, aged 0 to 5 years, in rural areas, lived in a state of acute malnutrition.
1988
During this period, a very intense drought hit the entire population, precisely at the end of April. Starving population, looting food warehouses and open markets, dying animals and lost crops. With the exception of Maranhão, all other states in the Northeast were affected, in a total of about five million people affected. This drought was predicted for over a year, as a result of the El Niño phenomenon, but, as in previous times, nothing was done to mitigate the effects of the catastrophe.
The strong influence of environmental factors, for decades, on the region's population is clearly observed, where drought, as a physical phenomenon, cannot be changed, always representing a disaster, accentuated by the absence of risk management, increasing inequalities , social conflicts and dismantling the entire local productive structure for the poorest segments of the population.
Final considerations
The results show a complex picture in relation to the drought disaster, where water vulnerability triggers other vulnerabilities: economic, social and environmental, conditioning the development of populations in the seminarid region. Migration is still adopted as a survival strategy for families in the interior.
In the Brazilian semiarid region, rural families, over time, face a high degree of social risks, triggered by vulnerabilities to drought. Thus, it is necessary to recognize the issue of water vulnerability, with the development of effective public policies, based on the sustainability of the region and on regional development aimed at preserving the environment and society. It is also necessary not to forget the ethnic and cultural diversity, its valorization in the face of different forms of management, in the conservation of biodiversity.
