Desastres naturais e pobreza absoluta na Amazônia: uma análise quantitativa

Abstract

The Amazon is one of the poorest Brazilian regions and, in recent years, it has been hit by intense natural disasters. In this sense, this Ph.D. thesis aims to analyze how the occurrence of natural disasters affects the variation of absolute poverty in the Amazon between 2000 and 2010. The beginning and the end of this period coincide with the latest measurements of data reduction from demographic data, while in this interval, three major natural disaster events hit in the Amazon: the dry of 2005 and 2010 and the floods of 2009. Numerous studies, in international literature, point out that natural disasters affect the poor more severely than the rich and tend to maintain or increase levels of poverty in the regions where they occur. Based on these surveys, the following hypothesis was raised: “absolute poverty, both in terms of percentage and intensity, increased or decreased less in the Amazonian municipalities most frequently affected by natural disasters”. To test this hypothesis, a regression model was elaborated, which includes indicators of absolute poverty as a dependent variable and, as explanatory variables, indicators of natural disasters, economic growth and public assistance policies. The results showed that absolute poverty was accentuated in the municipalities most affected by natural disasters, but while droughts and gradual floods affected the percentage of poor, sudden floods decreased the income of the poor.