09/14/2024 – 6:35
Lack of rain, fires and heat waves are affecting human health, energy generation and food production. Rainfall is expected to remain below average in the coming months. The map showing the drought in Brazil practically leaves no region untouched. The situation is exceptionally critical in states that are home to the Amazon Rainforest, such as Acre, parts of Amazonas and northern Mato Grosso. The situation is expected to worsen in the coming months in the semi-arid region of the Northeast.
Even for those who have been working for decades analyzing drought phenomena, there is still no clarity about what is happening in Brazil. The research community is trying to discover whether there are any links between abnormal ocean warming, deforestation and the current prolonged drought.
“It is difficult to find a scientific explanation for the situation we are seeing at the moment. In some regions, rainfall has been below average for more than 12 months,” says Luz Adriana Cuartas, a researcher at the National Center for Monitoring and Alerts for Natural Disasters (Cemaden).
The forecast is not optimistic. The entire country will suffer from above-average heat and little rain in the coming months. Only the southern region, which suffered historic floods last April, is expected to receive more rain, according to the National Institute of Meteorology (Inmet).
“At this moment, one of the sectors that is being most impacted is agriculture. Next comes supply, energy generation and navigation,” says Cuartas, a member of the Drought Information System for southern South America (Sissa).
Supply and energy
Water shortages have led some cities in the interior of São Paulo to implement water rationing. Access to information about where the service is provided by municipal authorities is limited due to the election period. In Minas Gerais, several municipalities are also facing water rationing.
Droughts make electricity bills more expensive. In Brazil, hydroelectric plants are the main source – and the cheapest – of electricity, and when there is less water in the reservoirs, the system spends more on generation.
This led the National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel) to activate the red flag of the tariff system. In other words, Brazilians will pay R$7.87 more for every 100 kilowatt-hours (kWh) consumed starting in September. The expectation is that the country will consume less electricity, which is a challenge when temperatures rise – historically, consumption tends to increase in search of cooling.
According to the National System Operator (ONS), which controls the country’s supply networks, reservoir levels are expected to be 50% below the historical average in September. In the Southeast/Central-West, which accounts for 70% of the most important reservoirs in terms of electricity generation, the forecast is 49% less, the lowest for the month in the entire 94-year historical series, the ONS stated.
Not raining for so long is a tragedy, laments Nivalde de Castro, coordinator of the Electrical Sector Study Group (Gesel) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ): energy will cost more because thermoelectric plants, which are more expensive and more polluting, will be turned on to meet demand.
“But there is no risk of a blackout. Hydroelectric plants are representing less and less of the Brazilian electricity matrix due to the expansion of the installed capacity of wind and solar sources,” Castro said in an interview with DW.
Currently, hydroelectric plants generate almost half of the country’s electricity (48%), followed by small local generation plants using renewable sources (14.4%) and wind farms (14.1%).
Impact on health
The simultaneous occurrence of so many phenomena – drought, fires, high temperatures – is seen as dramatic by the public health sector. The current situation causes a cascade effect on the human body, with overlapping risks, diseases and injuries.
“What we are experiencing today is alarming in every sense. It is an atypical year due to the intensity, extent and duration of the drought. This cannot be treated as normal. There are groups that propose declaring a public health emergency together with the climate emergency,” says Carlos Machado, director of the Center for Studies and Research on Health Emergencies and Disasters at Fiocruz.
The effects of this season of drought, fires and heat waves vary according to the region. In the Amazon, for example, the disappearance of rivers causes problems mainly related to people consuming water that is not suitable for drinking.
“This also worsens the isolation itself. In some places, this is compounded by the impact of the fires, which exacerbate respiratory problems,” says Machado, noting that this situation mainly affects people with chronic diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension.
Christovam Barcellos, a researcher at the Health Information Laboratory of the Institute of Scientific and Technological Communication and Information in Health at Fiocruz, is monitoring the situation with the federal government. He says the drought has made it difficult for health teams to travel to serve riverside and indigenous communities.
“There are other cases happening that are not always so obvious. We have observed an increase in malaria outbreaks in some locations in the state of Amazonas,” Barcellos told DW.
The number of hospitalizations and care for respiratory problems is expected to increase in the Unified Health System. Monitoring these numbers in real time is complex, since the information is entered into the database by each unit and only later becomes available for analysis.
Effect on food
In family farming, the risk of impact will be greater in the Amazonian interior and semi-arid regions. The extreme drought in the north of Mato Grosso, Acre and Amazonas will bring greater losses to small producers in the cities of the latter state, as they are among the most vulnerable in the country.
“In this vulnerability we consider the capacity to cope with drought. Those who have less access to technology, technical assistance and lower income have less resilience,” explains Ana Paula Cunha, a researcher at Cemaden.
According to Cemaden’s assessment, the risk of drought in family farming is assessed considering the cultivation of non-irrigated beans and corn, as these are the main crops. These are subsistence crops, and only the excess is sold in local businesses.
“It’s not just a loss of production. It’s a loss of living conditions, compromising the entire family farming system,” says Cunha. “Livestock farming is also likely to suffer a bit, since pastures are of poor quality due to the lack of rain and high temperatures,” he adds.
The latest survey of the 2023/2024 grain harvest estimated a production of 298.41 million tons, a drop of 21.4 million tons compared to the previous cycle. According to the report by the National Supply Company (Conab), the climate is to blame: lack of rain in some regions and excess in others, such as Rio Grande do Sul, harmed the sector, especially soybeans.
While searching for scientific explanations for the current scenario, Luz Adriana Cuartas suggests that society reflect. “I think it is important for us to ask ourselves what we are doing to the planet. Are society and the sectors of the economy not making the connection that the way we treat the planet, burning and deforesting, has a direct effect on nature and on our lives?” she asks.
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