Socioeconomic and environmental risks in municipalities bathed by tributaries of the Amazon River

Abstract

Municipalities in the Amazon are constantly affected by droughts and floods, and these socioeconomic and environmental risks mainly affect the local population. These precipitation extremes cause severe changes in rivers' hydrology, on both a temporal and a spatial scale. The intended objective of this study therefore was to determine the socioeconomic and environmental risk of municipalities affected by the tributaries and by the main channel of the Amazon River in relation to extreme precipitation events. We used monthly and annual precipitation data from 1982 to 2012 and social data from 2010 (urban, elderly, female and child populations, income and education level) for 47 localities in the Amazon Basin. We concluded that the risk was highest during flood events, particularly in smaller states (Acre and Roraima), and that vulnerability was greater in larger states (Amazonas and Pará). However, the population in the municipalities along the Amazon River have moderate to very strong socioeconomic and environmental risk because of the vulnerability associated with high urbanization and poverty, and threat of floods and droughts ranging from moderate to high.