Assessment of impacts and vulnerability to climate change in Brazil and strategies for adaptation options

Abstract

The Earth System Science Center CCST of the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research INPE is submitting a research proposal entitled: Assessment of Impacts and Vulnerability to Climate Change in Brazil and strategies for Adaptation options. This project is coordinated by Dr. Jose Marengo, Senior Scientist from the CCST/INPE.The project is divided in 7 components, led by scientists from INPE, the Center of Technology and Space, Universities of the State of Sao Paulo, and it includes almost 50 scientist from various institutions of Brazil and from other countries. The sustainability of development in Brazil is strongly linked to the capacity of responding to the challenges associated with climate change. Brazil is vulnerable to present-day climate change and will be profoundly impacted by projected climate changes in the future. The objective of this project is to develop reseach focused on the areas of impacts and vulnerability and their application to indentify adaptation options to climate change. The project constitutes a step futher to the production of future climate scenarios and detection and attribution studies, making use of a new generation of regional climate scenarios being generated at INPE. We aim to establish the base for studies and assessments for impact, adaptation and vulnerability studies in Brazil, using climate and vulnerability indices based on environmental, geographical-geophysical and social information, to indentify areas under risk to climate stress, and to map vulnerability of population nation and statewide. Some emphasis is on climate extremes and their impacts on water resources and planning and natural disasters of meteorological origin at national scale. Specific studies of vulnerablity and risk in the State of Sao Paulo, for the Serra do Mar, Paraiba do Sul Valley regions, the city of Sao Carlos and Campinas. It is clear that the genration of high-quality scientfic nformation to assist public policy in the areas of adaptation and mitigation. (AU)