Vulnerabilidade socioambiental à seca: uma perspectiva do Seridó Potiguar

Abstract

Difficult to pinpoint its temporality and with disastrous effects, drought as a historical-natural phenomenon of high complexity, has afflicted secularly the population of the Northeast Region of Brazil, which has 70% of its municipalities located in the semi-arid region, and in the case of the State of Rio Grande do Norte, exceeds 90%, not only producing socio-spatial and socioeconomic conflicts, as well as political-institutional ones. In this way, and for case analysis, the Seridó region was chosen, which plays an important regional role in RN and has historically benefited from hydraulic policies and actions for living with the semi-arid. Thus, under the fact that drought, in the middle of the 21st century, continues to take on disaster proportions and causes widespread damage to the economy, the present research aims to offer an overview of the vulnerability of the Seridó region to the drought phenomenon, starting from seven key municipalities, Bodó, Caicó, Currais Novos, Ipueira, Jardim de Piranhas, Jucurutu and Parelhas, for which the Drought Vulnerability Index (IVS) was applied, composed of the sub-indices of Exposure, Susceptibility and Coping Capacity based on socioeconomic and physicalenvironmental variables. Based on this, and from the historical-political, physicalenvironmental and socioeconomic characterization of the region in question, this research was structured in a systemic geographic approach, evolving the concepts of natural hazard, risk and vulnerability, in which, for the latter, its methodological application was presented to the drought in the Seridó Potiguar. And by the results obtained, the municipalities are in a moderate range of vulnerability to drought, some more or less than others, since despite the diversity of variables used, the averages obtained in the sub-indices compensated each other, the high coping capacity sometimes compensated the high exposure values, just as a low exposure was compensated by high sensitivity. In this scenario, the SVI in the municipalities was influenced by several aspects and factors, but within which social assistance, mixed economy, hydraulic infrastructure, and means of living with the semi-arid region stand out.