Urban social vulnerability and climate change in Rio de Janeiro city associated with population mobility

ABSTRACT

This article intends to verify how climate change vulnerability and population mobility are related and how they are spatially distributed in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro is among the Brazilian metropoles covering the largest urban agglomerations and containing the most vulnerable areas to the effects of climate change. In addition, the city also has one of the worst indicators for daily intra-urban travel in Brazil. Mobility and vulnerability are related through processes inherent to the formation of the occupation of urban space, such as property speculation, the evolution of the means of transport, and access to urban functions. Using Factorial Analysis and geoprocessing techniques, a Climate Change Vulnerability Index was created and spatialized with socio-economic, environmental, infrastructure, and transport dimensions. It was found that the historical processes which induced socio-spatial segregation are still reflected in the present day, through levels of population vulnerability. Among the research results is the need for the integration of urban policies and adaptive measures, principally in relation to housing and transport policies, which, in addition to be advantageous, are shown to be extremely important to increase the local adaptation capacity of the urban population to climate change.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• vulnerability
• populational mobility
• urban planning
• cities

Acknowledgements

On behalf of the authors we would like to acknowledge the funding received from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES). We would also like to thank the Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy, Strategies and Development of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (PPED//IE/UFRJ) for supporting this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Camila R. Freitas is a PhD student in Public Policies, Strategies and Development Program at the Institute of Economics of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (PPED/IE/UFRJ). With research experience in measuring vulnerability to climate change, her current research focuses on the impacts of economic austerity on social vulnerability to climate change.

Alexandre L. A. D’Avignon is a professor at the Public Policies, Strategies and Development Programme, at the Institute of Economics of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (PPED/IE/UFRJ), lecturing the courses of Global Environmental Conventions and Environmental Management and Innovation. His research interests envolve technological and regulatory innovation through environmental management, based on evolutionary theory, discussing alternatives of technological routes with renewable energy and environmentally sound technologies.

Ana Célia Castro is a professor at Institute of Economics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She has experience in Economics, acting on the following fields: Institutional Economics, agribusiness, innovation, intellectual property. She is also the vice-coordinator of the Post Graduate Program in Public Policies, Strategies and Development (PPED/IE/UFRJ), at the Institute of Economics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Notes

1 A weighted area is defined as a geographic unit, formed by a mutually exclusive group of contiguous census sectors, for the application of weight calibration procedures in order to produce estimates compatible with information known for the population as a whole.

2 Available at: https://censo2010.ibge.gov.br/. Accessed in December 2017.

3 Available at: http://www.data.rio/ Accessed in December 2017.

4 Available at: http://www.dsr.inpe.br/topodata/ Accessed in December 2017.

5 The WAs were divided into quartiles to verify the equal number of WAs which belong to the categories of High, Medium-High, Medium-Low, and Low Vulnerability.

6 Institute for Applied Economic Research

7 RIO DE JANEIRO. CENTRO CLIMA/COPPE/UFRJ. Inventário e cenário de emissões de gases do efeito estufa da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro: resumo técnico. Rio de Janeiro: Coleção Estudos Cariocas, 2011, 105 p.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001.