Estudo observacional sobre os eventos de seca meteorológica e hidrológica na região de Marabá-PA no sudeste da Amazônia Oriental

Abstract

The objective of the present work is to investigate observational aspects of the meteorological and hydrological drought in the region of Marabá located in the southeast of Pará in eastern Amazon. We used precipitation and river stream monthly data for the 1971 to 2010 period. The meteorological drought events were selected from categories of the negative values based on methodology of the precipitation anomaly index-IAC. The hydrological drought events were selected from fluviometric data below normal based on standardized anomaly index. For the meteorological drought conditions, the events are concentrated mostly in the categories of Weak drought (FRA) and Moderate (MOD), with higher frequency of FRA events in February (38%), June (37%) and December (34%), while the MOD events are more frequent in August (39%), September (42%) and October (32%). For the hydrological drought events of the Tocantins River, the results show that the monthly occurrence of events is random and can be observed throughout the year, so that the duration of the events present no regularity over the period studied. The dynamic structure associated with meteorological and hydrological drought are related to a large-scale pattern of El Niño in the equatorial Pacific and warmer conditions in the tropical north Atlantic, whose large-scale ocean-atmospheric conditions present intensification in both the atmospheric descending branch of the zonal Walker cell and meridional Hadley cell, which induce significant inhibition of tropical convective activity, thus explaining the occurrence of drought events in the region. Furthermore, it was analyzed the relationship between the drought events and vegetation fires (burning) points in the Marabá region during years 2000 to 2009, and the correlation of around 43% confirms the synergy between drought and fire, ie, the forest becomes more flammable under conditions of hydric deficit.