Abstract
AbstractIn January 2020, an extreme precipitation event occurred over southeast Brazil, with the epicentre in Minas Gerais state. Although extreme rainfall frequently occurs in this region during the wet season, this event led to the death of 56 people, drove thousands of residents into homelessness, and incurred millions of Brazilian Reais (BRL) in financial loss through the cascading effects of flooding and landslides. The main question that arises is: To what extent can we blame climate change? With this question in mind, our aim was to assess the socioeconomic impacts of this event and whether and how much of it can be attributed to human‐induced climate change. Our findings suggest that human‐induced climate change made this event >70% more likely to occur. We estimate that >90,000 people became temporarily homeless, and at least BRL 1.3 billion (USD 240 million) was lost in public and private sectors, of which 41% can be attributed to human‐induced climate change. This assessment brings new insights about the necessity and urgency of taking action on climate change, because it is already effectively impacting our society in the southeast Brazil region. Despite its dreadful impacts on society, an event with this magnitude was assessed to be quite common (return period of 4 years). This calls for immediate improvements on strategic planning focused on mitigation and adaptation. Public management and policies must evolve from the disaster response modus operandi in order to prevent future disasters.
Highlights
An extreme precipitation event took place in Southeast Brazil in between 23rd and 25th January 2020, leading to cascading effects of flooding and landslides, causing extensive material and human damage as well as exorbitant economic losses, especially in the state of Minas Gerais. This region experiences frequent extreme precipitation events that lead to flash flooding and population displacement (Marengo and Alves, 2012; Ávila et al, 2016), the January 2020 event was record-breaking with 320.9 mm of accumulated precipitation measured within 3 days at the state capital Belo Horizonte city (INMET, 2021)
We aimed to answer these questions: (1) What were the socioeconomic impacts of this extreme precipitation event? (2) if and by how much this extreme precipitation event can be attributed to human-induced climate change?
The most affected mesoregions were the Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Region, Vale do Rio Doce, and Zona da Mata. They accounted for 91% of public economic losses, 93% of private economic losses, 92% of total material damage, 91% of the total displaced population, 95% of the total homeless population, and 99% of the sick and injured people from this extreme event
Summary
An extreme precipitation event took place in Southeast Brazil in between 23rd and 25th January 2020, leading to cascading effects of flooding and landslides, causing extensive material and human damage as well as exorbitant economic losses, especially in the state of Minas Gerais This region experiences frequent extreme precipitation events that lead to flash flooding and population displacement (Marengo and Alves, 2012; Ávila et al, 2016), the January 2020 event was record-breaking with 320.9 mm of accumulated precipitation measured within 3 days at the state capital Belo Horizonte city (INMET, 2021). The event was caused by a combination of an intensified South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ) and the emergence of the Kurumí subtropical cyclone (KSC) over the South Atlantic on the 23rd January 2020 (Marine Meteorological Service, 2020) Both processes contributed to the increase of moisture convergence across the region. Given the extreme impacts of this event, potential effects of human-induced climate change on these meteorological processes cannot be neglected, as climate change has been reported to be associated with increasing frequency and severity of extreme events around the world (Marengo et al, 2009)
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