Recreational fisheries in Brazil have increased in importance and attracted many foreign recreational fishers. The objectives of this article were to summarise the available data on Brazilian recreational fisheries, to discuss some of their features and to analyse how they are performing in different regions compared with international trends. A review of published and unpublished sources together with data from recreational fishing licences was used. The participation rate was low (0.9%). Overall, there was a high diversity of fish species, with the following species/group of species repeatedly reported: Menticirrhus spp., Centropomus spp., Cynoscion spp., and Micropogonias furnieri (marine/estuarine water), and Cichla spp., Hoplias malabaricus, and Piaractus mesopotamicus, together with the introduced Oreochromis niloticus and Coptodon rendalli (fresh water). The north‐eastern region differs from the other regions: fishing occurs mostly in marine waters and fishers acquire mainly shore‐based licences, have minimum fishing expenditures and rarely release fishes. There is no estimate of the total harvest or economic value. Conflicts include catch‐and‐release‐oriented freshwater and marine recreational fishers vs consumption‐oriented coastal fishers, tournament participants vs non‐participants, commercial fishers and other leisure activities, pollution, ports, species introductions and translocations, protected areas, and federal and state laws. Cases of smooth shifts from artisanal to recreational fishing were detected, possibly associated with changes in the societal relationship with natural resources.

This article presents a general overview of recreational fisheries in Brazil, with emphasis on inland fisheries; reports their current needs; and provides directions for future work considering that there is an apparent increase in recreational fishing in emerging economies around the globe. Even though there is no nationwide survey to identify the profile of all Brazilian recreational fishers, some insights can be obtained from competitive fishing events and from the questionnaire printed on the back of fishing licenses. The number of fishing licenses issued in 2010 was approximately 220,000, representing an increase of 220% compared to 2000. Some estimates suggest that the number of recreational fishers in Brazil may be around 10 million. Information on fishing expenses, catch‐and‐release activities, fishing guides, lodging, fishing areas, target species, management control, and fishing clubs and associations is presented. Data for basic estimates such as total number of recreational fishers, total catch and species composition, and total economic value are unavailable, but the results presented here are nevertheless essential for a long‐term planning of the development of recreational fishing in Brazil. Other requirements are presented and suggestions are made toward improved management of recreational fisheries in Brazil and other emerging economies.

Commercial fisheries catches by country are documented since 1950 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Unfortunately, this does not hold for marine recreational catches, of which only few, if any, estimates are reported to FAO. We reconstructed preliminary estimates of likely marine recreational catches for 1950-2014, based on independent reconstructions for 125 countries. Our estimates of marine recreational catches that are retained and landed increased globally until the early 1980s, stabilized through the 1990s, and began increasing again thereafter, amounting to around 900,000 t · year −1 in 2014. Marine recreational catches thus account for slightly less than 1% of total global marine catches. Trends vary regionally, increasing in Asia, South America and Africa, while slightly decreasing in Europe and Oceania, and strongly decreasing in North America. The derived taxonomic composition indicates that recent catches were dominated by Sparidae (12% of total catches), followed by Scombridae (10%), Carangidae (6%), Gadidae (5%), and Sciaenidae (4%). The importance of Elasmobranchii (sharks and rays) in recreational fisheries in some regions is of concern, given the life-history traits of these taxa. Our preliminary catch reconstruction, despite high data uncertainty, should encourage efforts to improve national data reporting of recreational catches.

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The present paper describes the main results of an on-going research aiming to develop standard flood damage data in the form of generic flood-damage curves. This type of curve allows estimating flood damages from the depth of inundation. Although the research project encompasses flood damages on different urban land use activities (residential, commercial, services and industrial land uses), the paper focus on residential flood damage information. The empirical data used on this research was obtained from systematic surveys performed in the city of Itajubá, a town with 85.000 inhabitants located in the Sapucaí river valley in the South-eastern region of Brazil, during the year of 2002. The survey consisted in interviewing residents in the Itajubá flood prone urban area in order to develop a data base characterizing the social class, the building fabric, the contents (inventory items) and the damages caused to dwellings by a reference flood event, the 2000 flood event. During this event, the town had more than 70% of its urban area flooded for three days and, in some densely urbanised areas, the depth of water was superior to three meters. The FDC curves obtained show relatively high damage according to the submersion depth considering the Brazilian context. This issue suggests that inhabitants can rarely recover, in the short time, from all the harm caused by flooding.