2026-07-08

By Luciana Constantino  |  Agência FAPESP – Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly frequent and severe. The El Niño predicted for 2026–2027 is one such event. These events have caused environmental, economic, and social impacts in Brazil, requiring specific public policies. To transform scientific data into a foundation for developing prevention, adaptation, and mitigation measures, a group of Brazilian researchers analyzed approximately 60,000 records of hydrogeological disasters in Brazil between 1991 and 2024. 

They found that 91.5% of the 5,570 municipalities reported at least one disaster related to flooding, waterlogging, flash floods, landslides, storms, or drought during this period. Specifically, 1,814 cities experienced at least one incident caused by three of these factors, while another 270 cities experienced all of them. The Northeast had the most affected cities (1,765), followed by the Southeast (1,405), the South (1,152), the North (433), and the Midwest (342). 

…

“We wanted to dispel the myth that a disaster is something supernatural, that its causes stem from disproportionate forces. There are exceptions that climate models can’t predict, but for most events, national agencies such as CEMADEN issue alerts, and public authorities are informed of what may happen. The problem is negligence, a lack of infrastructure, and even a failure to act. We decided to call them socio-natural or socio-environmental disasters because there’s an anthropogenic aggravating factor – not only related to climate change but also to failures in public management,” says Elton Vicente Escobar Silva, the first author of the study and a CEMADEN researcher conducting this research as part of his postdoctoral work. 

…

These records are self-reported by municipalities and serve, among other purposes, to seek federal government funding when local and state administrations lack the capacity to handle and respond to adverse events affecting the municipality. In other words, many cases may have resulted in unreported losses or fatalities because local administrations were able to manage the situation themselves or due to a lack of reporting infrastructure. 

…