Poverty and water management in the Sao Francisco river basin: Preliminary assessments and issues to consider
Of the approximately 17 million who inhabited the SFRB in 2003, about 3.7 million (approximately 21%) were poor by Brazilian standards (living on about one minimum salary or less). Just over four million people lived in rural areas of the SFRB and nearly one-third of them (about 1.2 million)...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Otro |
| Language: | Inglés |
| Published: |
CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food
2006
|
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/16765 |
| _version_ | 1855515982756315136 |
|---|---|
| author | Vosti, S.A. Torres, M. |
| author_browse | Torres, M. Vosti, S.A. |
| author_facet | Vosti, S.A. Torres, M. |
| author_sort | Vosti, S.A. |
| collection | Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace) |
| description | Of the approximately 17 million
who inhabited the SFRB
in 2003, about 3.7 million
(approximately 21%) were poor by
Brazilian standards (living on about
one minimum salary or less). Just over
four million people lived in rural areas
of the SFRB and nearly one-third of
them (about 1.2 million) were poor.
But the rural poor were not distributed
evenly across the SFRB (see
Figure 1). The proportion of the rural
poor tended to be lower in the southern
portion of the SFRB, primarily in
the state of Minas Gerais, the mountainous
zone where the São Francisco
River begins. Rural poverty, by this
measure, tended to be higher in the
central and northern zones, with some
municípios registering proportional
rates of poverty well in excess of 50%
of the rural population.
The depth of poverty matters
greatly; Figure 2 depicts the spatial
distribution within the SFRB of
the extreme poverty, i.e., individuals
belonging to households living on
less than one-third of the Brazilian
monthly minimum salary per person.
These extremely poor households are
located almost exclusively in the central
and northern zones of the SFRB.
While poverty is central to our
research, training, and outreach
mandates, it is also interesting to
focus attention on municípios that
are less poor, in part because we may
learn something from these less-poor
municípios that may be useful to their
more-poor counterparts. Reviewing
Figures 1 and 2, it is easy to identify
less-poor municípios in the central
and northern zones of the SFRB
where rural poverty was especially
concentrated. One has to wonder
what factors might cause neighboring
municípios to have such different rural
poverty rates; might water availability
have something to do with this?
Water Availability in the SFRB
While water availability is difficult to
define and even more challenging to
measure, at any resolution, Figure 3
depicts estimated water availability for
the SFRB, by município. Our measure
of water availability considers annual
precipitation, base evapotranspiration,
catchment area upstream,
and slope (how likely is rainfall or
run-on likely to ‘stay’ on the receiving
farm); municípios that appear
in darker blue have more available
water than those in green or
yellow. No seasonal or other water
storage, or artificial conveyance of
water, is included in this measure
of water availability; this measure
of water availability may be most
useful in areas where irrigated
agriculture relies on precipitation
as well as on local diversions of
direct runoff from the upstream
catchment.
Two important patterns emerge,
one that we have been long
familiar with and another that is
somewhat surprising. The familiar
pattern is that of generally higher
measures of water availability in the
southern and central zones of the
SFRB than in the northern zone; this
corresponds to known variations in
annual rainfall, which ranges from a
high of about 1,500 mm/year in the
southern zone to a low of about 500
mm/year in some areas of the northern
zone.
The surprising pattern is the presence
of relatively water-scarce municípios
in the high-rainfall southern
zone, and some relatively water-rich
municípios in the arid northern zone.
Other variables in the water availability
measure as well as scale of analysis
(resolution) explain these differences. |
| format | Otro |
| id | CGSpace16765 |
| institution | CGIAR Consortium |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2006 |
| publishDateRange | 2006 |
| publishDateSort | 2006 |
| publisher | CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food |
| publisherStr | CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | CGSpace167652025-11-12T07:34:40Z Poverty and water management in the Sao Francisco river basin: Preliminary assessments and issues to consider Vosti, S.A. Torres, M. Of the approximately 17 million who inhabited the SFRB in 2003, about 3.7 million (approximately 21%) were poor by Brazilian standards (living on about one minimum salary or less). Just over four million people lived in rural areas of the SFRB and nearly one-third of them (about 1.2 million) were poor. But the rural poor were not distributed evenly across the SFRB (see Figure 1). The proportion of the rural poor tended to be lower in the southern portion of the SFRB, primarily in the state of Minas Gerais, the mountainous zone where the São Francisco River begins. Rural poverty, by this measure, tended to be higher in the central and northern zones, with some municípios registering proportional rates of poverty well in excess of 50% of the rural population. The depth of poverty matters greatly; Figure 2 depicts the spatial distribution within the SFRB of the extreme poverty, i.e., individuals belonging to households living on less than one-third of the Brazilian monthly minimum salary per person. These extremely poor households are located almost exclusively in the central and northern zones of the SFRB. While poverty is central to our research, training, and outreach mandates, it is also interesting to focus attention on municípios that are less poor, in part because we may learn something from these less-poor municípios that may be useful to their more-poor counterparts. Reviewing Figures 1 and 2, it is easy to identify less-poor municípios in the central and northern zones of the SFRB where rural poverty was especially concentrated. One has to wonder what factors might cause neighboring municípios to have such different rural poverty rates; might water availability have something to do with this? Water Availability in the SFRB While water availability is difficult to define and even more challenging to measure, at any resolution, Figure 3 depicts estimated water availability for the SFRB, by município. Our measure of water availability considers annual precipitation, base evapotranspiration, catchment area upstream, and slope (how likely is rainfall or run-on likely to ‘stay’ on the receiving farm); municípios that appear in darker blue have more available water than those in green or yellow. No seasonal or other water storage, or artificial conveyance of water, is included in this measure of water availability; this measure of water availability may be most useful in areas where irrigated agriculture relies on precipitation as well as on local diversions of direct runoff from the upstream catchment. Two important patterns emerge, one that we have been long familiar with and another that is somewhat surprising. The familiar pattern is that of generally higher measures of water availability in the southern and central zones of the SFRB than in the northern zone; this corresponds to known variations in annual rainfall, which ranges from a high of about 1,500 mm/year in the southern zone to a low of about 500 mm/year in some areas of the northern zone. The surprising pattern is the presence of relatively water-scarce municípios in the high-rainfall southern zone, and some relatively water-rich municípios in the arid northern zone. Other variables in the water availability measure as well as scale of analysis (resolution) explain these differences. 2006-11-02 2012-04-13T16:34:12Z 2012-04-13T16:34:12Z Other https://hdl.handle.net/10568/16765 en Open Access application/pdf CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food Vosti, S. A., Torres, M., 2006. Poverty and water management in the Sao Francisco river basin: Preliminary assessments and issues to consider. São Francisco River Basin Research Brief 2. Colombo, Sri Lanka: CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food. |
| spellingShingle | Vosti, S.A. Torres, M. Poverty and water management in the Sao Francisco river basin: Preliminary assessments and issues to consider |
| title | Poverty and water management in the Sao Francisco river basin: Preliminary assessments and issues to consider |
| title_full | Poverty and water management in the Sao Francisco river basin: Preliminary assessments and issues to consider |
| title_fullStr | Poverty and water management in the Sao Francisco river basin: Preliminary assessments and issues to consider |
| title_full_unstemmed | Poverty and water management in the Sao Francisco river basin: Preliminary assessments and issues to consider |
| title_short | Poverty and water management in the Sao Francisco river basin: Preliminary assessments and issues to consider |
| title_sort | poverty and water management in the sao francisco river basin preliminary assessments and issues to consider |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/16765 |
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