Propensão socioeconômica à desertificação e gestão ambiental nos municípios do semiárido brasileiro

Abstract

The Brazilian semi-arid (BSA) region, due to climate conditions and the inadequate use of its resources, is increasingly threatened by the phenomenon of desertification, which is a matter of concern to society in a worldwide scale. This adversity is taking proportions so that, if no action to reverse this process is taken, lands that were formerly considered fertile will lose all their productive capacity. Given this scenario, this study sought to analyze the socioeconomic propensity for desertification and environmental management in the municipalities of the Brazilian semiarid region. For this purpose, the 1,134 municipalities of the new semiarid delimitation according to Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics were selected, where two specific indexes were adopted as proxies: Socioeconomic Propensity to Desertification Index (SPDI) and Environmental Management Index (EMI). The main results were as follows: i) 52.20% of the municipalities belong to the intermediate class of socioeconomic propensity to desertification; and ii) 55% of the municipalities belong to the lowest level class of EMI implementation, identified priorities and local demands for the reduction of propensity Desertification, as well as the low levels of implementation of environmental management instruments in municipal municipalities.Two conclusions deserve to be highlighted: i) there is a heterogeneity of the cities areas in the two analyzed parameters, which draws attention to the risks of a generalist position by planners of the policies to prevent desertification at the Brazilian semi-arid region; and ii) cities areas are lacking of the instruments capable of improvement the actions in affected environmental area.