Banca de DEFESA: ANDERSON GEOVÁ MAIA DE BRITO

SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL VULNERABILITY TO DROUGHT: A PERSPECTIVE OF SERIDÓ POTIGUAR UNDER THE Aegis of SEVEN KEY MUNICIPALITIES

Drought; Vulnerability; Semiarid; Seridó Potiguar

Difficult to specify its temporality and with disastrous effects, the drought as a historical and natural phenomenon of high complexity, has been the subject of the population of the Northeast Region of Brazil for a long time, which has 70% of its municipalities located in the semiarid region, the same case of the State of Rio Grande do Norte, exceeds 90%, not only producing socio-spatial and socioeconomic conflicts, such as political-institutional. Thus, and for case analysis, the region of Seridó potiguar was chosen, which plays an important regional role in RNe and has historically been benefited by hydraulic policies and actions of living with the semiarid. Thus, due to the fact that the drought, in the middle of the 21st century, continues to take proportions of natural disaster causing widespread damage to the economy, the present research aims to offer an overview of the vulnerability of the Seridó region to the phenomenon of drought, starting from seven key municipalities, Bodó, Caicó, Currais Novos, Ipueira, Jardim de Piranhas, Jucurutu and Parelhas, for which the Drought Vulnerability Index (IVS) was applied, composed of the Lidara Exposure, Sensitivity and Capacity sub-indices from socioeconomic and physical variables Based on this, and based on the historical-political, physical-environmental and socioeconomic characteristics of the region in question, this research was structured in a systemic geographical approach, evolving the concepts of natural hazard, risk and vulnerability, in which, for the latter , its methodological application to drought in the Seridópotiguar was presented, and that by the obtained results, it was verified that the municipalities are exp drought, but that the available infrastructure and assistance actions, represented by Sensitivity and Adaptive Capacity, attenuate the averages of vulnerability of these.