Technical Note on the Rio Branco's Study
The capital with the second highest forest cover in the country (70,88%), after Manaus (Amazonas), is the highlight of the Urban Legal Amazon project. The municipality of Rio Brando (Acre) concludes the first year of project, which investigated five of the nine cities of the territory (Belém, Macapá, Manaus and São Luís). The urban socio-spatial formation analysis is available in the paper “Urban and Gender Inequalities in Times of Climate Change: A socio-spatial analysis of Rio Branco (AC)” .
The study aims to reflect on how these inequalities are consolidated through territorial planning and how it is possible to dialogue, along-with data, paths that lead equity, at least, in face of the established climate crises in urban spaces. Therefore, the project’s team researchers used a methodology the collection of socio economic and socio demographic information through gender, race and ethnic classification of the populations residing in Rio Bravo, ensuing the data example from the 2010 IBGE Census.
In this data collection, the team explored, for instance, data related to schooling, per capita household income, sanitary sewage, litter disposal, access to drinking water, in addition to data connected to territorial characteristics of the municipality of Rio Branco, such as districts, neighborhoods and subnormal agglomerates. The investigation, thus, considers race/ethnic and gender as social markers, given their relevance for the climate change impacts analysis on the reality of these populations.
In the chapter “Race/Ethnicity and Gender Inequalities and Climate Change in Rio Branco”, it is emphasized, for example, that black and indigenous represents most of the Acre’s capital, 72.20%, being, therefore, the most vulnerable, as it is exposed in the data on monthly income, which identifies that 59% of population live with a monthly income of ⅛ to a minimum wage, 72% are black, 64.76% are indigenous and 48% are white. Considering the gender category, the Acre’s capital follows the same Brazilian pattern, considering a scenario in which the population is formed of more women than men, 51.81% and 48.19%, respectively.
Contemplating the spectrum between 3 and 10 minimum wages, only 9.02% of Rio Branco citizens declared having this monthly income, of which 5.98% are indigenous, 12.56% are black and 15.40%, white. Also in this chapter, the research group analyzes sociodemographic data to assess the scenario of how populations are living in the municipality, and it is observed the same ethnic-racial and gender gradient and its expansion of inequalities within the studied contexts. These results are detailed in tables, for-which can be accessed in Rio Branco’s paper.
In the chapter “Unequal Territorial Planning in contempt of Climate Change”, the analysis is closer to the dimensions of the climate change impacts in urban environments, especially related to what is established in the municipal Director Plan. See excerpt from the paper, below:
Structures created as an advance in the urbanization of the city examined in this paper by the challenge to develop public policies, capable of mitigating and produce adaptation to spaces responding to the global climate crisis, which is establish with the climate change reinforcement by the dimensions: extreme conditions: climate change – extreme rainfall/tropical cyclone – urban areas impact: frequent flooding, increased risk of landslides, homes, factories and urban infrastructure damages; exposure changes: climate change – biological changes: impact on urban areas: increased disease vectors.
A further important underline presented by the paper “Urban and Gender Inequalities in Times of Climate Change: A socio-spatial analysis of Rio Branco (AC)”, is related to the sanitary and supply conditions for human consumption of the Rio Branco’s population and the dimensions of the subnormal agglomerates, which are sixteen in total, impacted by climate change, from the entire process of deforestation in progress, occupying a certain area of the territory and population density.
As in previous studies, Rio Branco’s socio-spatial investigation commenced from the observation of the municipality’s economic growth projects, whether disordered or ordered, but which confirm the concentration and/or increase in poverty and inequalities among the most vulnerable populations.
The Rio Branco’s paper is available to download on the page “Publications”.
Juliana Dias
Communication Coordination
Urban Legal Amazon Project – Socio-spatial Analysis of Climate Change