Vulnerability and climate change: socio-environmental analysis in a mesoregion of Amazonia

Abstract

The study of socio-environmental vulnerability associated with climate change is one of the topics most discussed by the international scientific community. The effects of climate change on society stem from different causes and effects; their analysis must take into account the cultural, economic and social context of a population. Thus, studies involving risks associated with extreme weather events must be done in an integrated and interdisciplinary way. In this context, the present research aims to contribute to vulnerability analysis in the metropolitan mesoregion of Belém, with a view to reducing the effects caused by climate and social changes. In order to do so, the General Vulnerability Index (GVI) was applied, based on socioeconomic, epidemiological and climatic indicators from 2000 to 2010.  The results found that the municipality of Belém had the highest value of GVI (0. 61), indicating a high vulnerability, presenting the highest indexes of climatic (1.00) and epidemiological (0.76) vulnerability. On the other hand, the municipality of Bujaru has a low vulnerability, with a GVI value of 0.14, explained by the minimum value of the index of climate vulnerability (0.00) and low indices of epidemiological (0.03) and socioeconomic vulnerability (0.38). We expect that this study may support the management of public policies for the municipalities and encourage studies of socio-environmental vulnerability in the Amazon region, with an interdisciplinary approach.