Vulnerabilidade nas comunidades rurais da área susceptível à desertificação do Sertão dos Inhamuns, Ceará

Abstract

Understanding the factors that promote vulnerability, as well as understanding the sensitivity and adaptive capacity of rural communities exposed to water stress in the core desertification will provide information sufficient of pointing out potentialities, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, promoting the development of the rural environment in a more efficient way contributing, in this way, to the improvement of these populations life quality. Thus, the study aims to characterize the vulnerability of rural communities located in the Susceptible Area to Desertification of the Inhamuns in the State of Ceará. For this, the vulnerability was segmented in three admeasurements: exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Within these admeasurements, some biophysical aspects were approached: access to water, condition of native vegetation and natural cover; socioeconomic factors: access to health services, food sufficiency, basic sanitation, access to education, investment in productive activities, profitability, sources of income diversity, influence of drought on income, dependence on social benefits, predominant condition of land tenure, market access, associativism and migration; and institutional: support of institutions for the rural sector, institutional support due to drought, access to rural credit and technical assistance. The purpose of variable diversity is to analyze in an integrated way the aspects that influences vulnerability in the study area. The research used primary data obtained through the application of forms to leaders of rural communities located in the Municipalities of Arneiroz, Independência and Tauá, inserted in the ASD. As methodological procedures, a multivariate analysis technique, the factorial analysis, was used to classify the communities based on the construction of a Vulnerability Index. Posteriorly, Cluster Analysis was used to group communities with low, intermediate and high levels of vulnerability. The results showed the indicators that had the greatest weight in the construction of indexes of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity were related to institutional support to rural activities, access to water and access to the market, respectively. Regarding the classification of the communities, it was observed that the groups referring to the intermediate and most vulnerable level of vulnerability are where the largest number of communities are located, with 54,95% and 29,67% of the total analyzed, respectively. The overall mean of the Vulnerability Index was 0,539, with the municipality of Independência averaging 0,562. Given these circumstances, it is concluded that the absence of institutional support for rural activities, limited access to water, inefficient production and commercialization resulting in low levels of profitability lack of associativism, poor health services, and lack of a contextualized education focused on the issues of the countryside are preponderant factors in the promotion of vulnerability in that region. It was also observed that the lack of professionalism of producers is still an obstacle to the socioeconomic region development. Analyzing the vulnerability of DHS in the Sertão dos Inhamuns, the need to develop specific policies for their context that are aimed not only at aspects of basic infrastructure and health, but especially those related to contextualized education focused on the reality of the semi-arid region in order to make individuals aware of their reality, independent and self-reliant.