It's been a week since heavy rains hit Rio de Janeiro and in the Baixada Fluminense the situation became even more serious with the floods that made families lose their possessions like beds, appliances, and no access to water and food. This year, we have already brought here two texts about the floods that occurred in Brazil and their relationship with the climate crisis, and we cannot fail to point out how frequent these events are occurring.
Studies compiled by Climate Central show that floods will get worse in municipalities in the Baixada in the next three decades, expanding the affected area and affecting millions of people.
Diego de Castro, geographer, researcher and creator of the Baixada Fluminense, explains that the socio-environmental crisis in this region today is a clear example of the climate crisis.
“If we take climate change and the extreme events it generates out of the equation, the region would already be in a situation of high vulnerability, given that its environmental systems and urban infrastructure are all at a limiting pressure level where any rain above average is the trigger of a chaotic scenario. The socio-environmental crisis that emerges is part of a process with historical reasons.”
According to him, the Baixada region has characteristics that favor flooding, since its landscape was marked by the occurrence of extensive floodplains, the natural path of rivers that came from the highest areas of Serra do Mar to flow into Guanabara Bay. “In this sense, we are talking about a territory that has the occurrence of floods as part of the dynamics of its landscape.”
This landscape was historically occupied and transformed and the geography of this region, together with the absence of public policies, built a scenario susceptible to extreme weather events:
“Its marshes, streams and flooded regions in general were filled with land, flattened and dissected, being treated as an obstacle to be overcome in the process of occupation of these cities and not as a means of guaranteeing an adequate quality of life. Bearing in mind the abandonment and omission on the part of the State, which, without planning, allowed the dense occupation of areas susceptible to flooding, often being responsible for carrying out these interventions that today amplify the susceptibility of municipalities in the region to the occurrence of these floods. ”
Regarding the lack of urban planning and public policies, Diego points out that the Baixada Fluminense coexists with a historical deficit in basic sanitation, and has three cities among the twenty worst in the country with regard to the quality of their sanitation services, they are Belford Purple (82nd)¹, São João de Meriti (87th) and Duque de Caxias (90th), and in 74th place is the city of Nova Iguaçu.
The implementation of sanitation works is essential to face the climate crisis, even more so in these more vulnerable regions. “The ineffective collection and disposal of garbage plays a role in obstructing the infrastructure for the flow of water and, consequently, its rivers, which, together with the sewage dumped without any treatment, generates floods in extreme rainfall events that, in addition to economic losses, can generate deaths and various diseases associated with inadequate sanitation conditions.”
Diego also points out the need to identify the most critical areas and create structured plans to mitigate these impacts, both on a local scale in the municipalities and regionally, since these cities share watersheds and rivers with each other, and there is no solution that can be thought of in a way separate. In addition, it is necessary to invest in building a path aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, an urgent agenda for building more resilient and sustainable cities.
Julia Rossi interviews Diego Castro.
1:Sector ranking made available biannually by the Trata Brasil Institute (with data from the National Sanitation Information System). The ranking takes into account the largest cities in the country, with more than 100,000 inhabitants.