Indicator of Agriculture Vulnerability to Climatic Extremes. A Conceptual Model with Case Study for the Northeast Brazil

Abstract

The Northeast Brazil (NEB) is known for its temporal and spatial variability of precipitation. Several studies have investigated this variability in order to understand the damaging episodes such as droughts and floods. The phenomenon of drought in the NEB is a complex topic due to affecting millions of people and being the object of study in several fields of knowledge. One way to try to argue about this phenomenon is through the concept of vulnerability. The "operability" of this broad concept in natural disasters is a complex task. In order to measure an indicator of vulnerability it is necessary large amount of data from different areas of knowledge, among which include: meteorology, socio-environmental, economic, public health, among other areas. The main objective of this study is to create an index of vulnerability to climate extremes (drought and flood) for the NEB and to compare this rate with those found in the scientific literature. The data that will be used in this study are from ANA (Agência Nacional das Águas), IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Georgrafia e Estatística), and Ministry of National integration.

Stability, robustness, vulnerability and resilience of agricultural systems. A review

“…The vulnerability of agricultural systems has mainly been studied with regard to the exposure to climatic perturbations, such as temperature changes , drought (Simelton et al 2009) or floods (McLeman and Smit 2006;Silva and Lucio 2014). It has also been used to describe the response of agricultural systems exposed to diverse socio-economic changes, such as market fluctuations or land use changes (Metzger et al 2006).…”

Vulnerability assessment for loss of access to drinking water due to extreme weather events

“…The minimum value of E, S, and AC was set to 0.1 to avoid final vulnerability scores of 0 for models M3 -M5 (and to avoid division by zero for M4), which would have prevented comparison between counties. The three determinants were weighted equally, as there was no consistent method or justification in the literature for selecting weighting schemes, with some studies using equal weighting (Antwi-Agyei et al 2012;Ferrier and Haque 2003;Hahn et al 2009;Shah et al 2013;Silva and Lucio 2014) and others using unequal weighting (Iglesias et al 2009;Perch-Nielsen 2010). It has been suggested in several studies (Hahn et al 2009;Sullivan and Meigh 2005) that expert opinion, participatory consultations, and stakeholder discussion should be used to determine the weighting scheme.…”

Characterization agricultural vulnerability to drought in the Northeast of Brazil

“…Therefore, in general, to determine the susceptibility or exposure climate used the data of precipitation NEB of ANA, initially to select the rainy season in the region (Figure 2), corresponding to the climatology of monthly precipitation in the period from 1980 to 2011. It 15 was observed that the rainy season is from January to April. The main active weather system in that period is the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), as it is further south about 2 and 4° between the months February to April (Rao et al, 2015).…”

“…The performance of different meteorological systems and the deficiency of public policies in managing water resources or severe weather warnings, which favors the occurrence of economic losses 30 and human lives in the region. The effects of weather and climate phenomena have negative impacts on agricultural production, especially small producers Luers et al,(2003); Silva and Lucio, (2014), in energy production and water supply due to the shortage of reservoirs Tubi et al,(2012), as well as impacts on health, leading to endemic outbreaks such as dengue and problems linked to lack or poor water quality Tanser et al, (2003). An extreme precipitation event is considered natural disaster when adversely affects the ecological, economic, social and cultural systems of a region (Castro et al, 2003).…”

“…In this context, the concept of the agricultural vulnerability is present in some countries: Mexico (Luers et al, 2003); Ahmed et al, 2009); Ghana (Antwi-Agyei et al, 2012); and China (Simelton et al, 2009); (Simelton et al, 2009). 15 In addition to different areas of knowledge: social sciences Ahmed et al, (2009); economy Ibarrarán et al, (2007); health Barata and Confalonieri, (2011); meteorology and climatology (Karim and Mimura, 2008;Nelson et al, 2010a). Despite its frequent use in recent years, the concept of vulnerability is rarely converted into analytical measurements that can be used to advise policy interventions and assess their impact.…”