Brazil suffers yearly with extreme weather and climate events (such as urban floods) which can be exacerbated in a warmer climate. Although several studies analyzed the projections of climate change in this part of the world, little attention has been done in defining the locations that can be most affected, and consequently making the population more vulnerable, in a spatially-explicit form. In this study, a spatial analysis of possible climate impacts and a joint investigation merging these climate impacts with social indicators of vulnerability in the Brazilian territory is performed. The Regional Climate Change Index (RCCI) – an index that is able to synthesize the large number of climate model projections available today – is used for the climate analysis, and the “Socio-Climatic Vulnerability Index” (SCVI) is proposed to aggregate local population vulnerabilities to the climate change information. Results from RCCI show two major climatic hot-spots emerging in Brazil: one covering a large area comprising nearly entire Northeast and Centre-West regions, and the other one concentrated in western/southern São Paulo state and the Southern region. The SCVI analysis reveals one major socio-climatic hot-spot over Northeast and a few punctual hot-spots occurring over some of the major Brazilian metropolitan regions. The major contributions of this study are (i) a detailed analysis of the RCCI over Brazil and (ii) the development of an index that can combine a large number of climate model information with social vulnerability indicators. Both indices can be important tools for climate and social scientists dialogue, and to communicate climate change to policymakers in a synthetic and socially-relevant form.
Redes Sociais