Áreas de risco de desastres ambientais na cidade de Fortaleza-Ceará-Brasil: vulnerabilidade social dos assentamentos precários no bairro Bom Jardim

Abstract

Natural disasters are seen all over the world.Viewedin developing countries, they derive from situations of populations’ vulnerability and degradation of natural environments, proceeding without account the limitations of systems. In Brazil and generally, they usually happen in largest cities occurring low income populations, centered in a critical socioeconomic situation and constituted by precarious settlements. As an urban environmental problem, these settlements are impacted by potentially dangerous natural events capable of producing disasters in the form material and human damages. This situation is verified in the Fortalezacity,capital of Ceará state, located in Brazil northeastern region. In this context, emphasis is placed on the precarious settlements in the Bom Jardim neighborhood, located in the southeast of the Fortalezacity.Distributed by all neighborhood, the problem is in general these settlements being hit by the floods of the Maranguapinho river and the Canal do Bom Jardim. It is questioned which settlements are more susceptible to the negative impacts of the floods. The goal is to analyze the spatialization of the risks of natural disasters in these settlements and to explain the reasons that produce the risk areas in the neighborhood, having as a spatial reference the precarious settlements. It is used as a bibliographical base author that aim social vulnerability as a factor of precariousness, urban environmental fragility and others that use fragilities and vulnerabilities in the integrative perspective of the evaluation of the natural disaster’s risks. Technical-operational procedures are used based on secondary data for the production of primary data; spatial environmental fragility of the urban environment of the neighborhood; to spatialize precarious settlements and establish their social vulnerabilities, as well as field surveys and geoprocessing techniques for the elaboration of primary cartographic products. The results conclude an interpretation that there is a true correlation between the precariousness of the settlements and the zonesofurban environmental fragility emerging from the Bom Jardim neighborhood, indicating the spatial dimension of the floods and risks areas of natural disasters. It is considered that natural and social factors understood in an integrated way can explain the formation of risk areas and the understanding that there is a need for spatial planning in the socio-spatial context inquestion.