GEO Brasil - UNEP

the state of environmental disasters
the state of the environment in Brazil
1 Characterisation of the disasters
Disasters are classed in terms of evolution, intensity and
origin
As for their evolution, disasters are classed as:
a) Fast or acute-evolution disasters: landslides, heavy
rains, windstorms, and fires in industrial facilities and
in buildings with a large number of people, earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions and others
b) Gradual or slow-evolution disasters: drought,
erosion, loss of cultivable soil, desertification, soil
salinisation and other
c) Disasters from a combination of partial effects:
traffic accidents, work-related accidents, increased
violence, drug traffic, cholera, malaria, acquired
immune deficiency syndrome
Natural Disasters can be related to:
a) Spatial origin: meteorite impact
b) External earth geodynamics: wind-caused
disasters, those related to external temperatures,
with the increase or intense reduction of water
precipitation
c) Internal earth geodynamics: earthquakes, tidal
waves and tsunamis, volcanic eruptions,
gravitational mass movements (sliding, tumbling or
falling mass) and mass transportation processes
(laminar erosion, linear erosion, soil subsidence,
fluvial erosion, sea erosion), and sand dune
advancement
d) Biocenosis unbalance: vegetable and animal
plagues
The nature of human or anthropogenic disasters can be:
As for the intensity of disasters, they are classed as:
a) small-scale disasters or accidents (Level I),
b) mid-scale disasters (Level II),
c) large-scale disasters (Level III),
d) major-scale disasters (Level IV)
In Brazil, disasters of intensity levels III and IV are legally
recognised by the federal, state and municipal governments
as state of public calamity and emergency Acute and majorscale
disasters are considerably rare in our country On the
other hand, disasters from a combination of partial effects
and slow-evolution disasters are frequent and every year
they generate greater damages and losses
As for the causing effect origin or primary cause, disasters
are classed as:
a) natural,
b) human or anthropogenic,
c) and mixed
a) Technological: spatial of technological nature, those
related to means of transportation, to civil
construction, fires in industrial facilities and in high
user-density buildings, to hazardous products, to
demographic concentrations and at risk of collapse
or exhaustion of energy or of other essential
resources or systems
b) Social: related to urban and rural ecosystems
(intentional destruction of fauna and flora,
depredation, by means of uncontrolled deforestation
and poor agricultural and ranching management,
accumulation of mining reject material and other);
related to social convulsions (unemployment, famine
and malnutrition, intense and uncontrolled
migrations, increased violence, poor or marginalised
children and teenagers, generalised riots and
disorder, drug traffic, increased criminality rates,
delinquency and organised crime, terrorism,
religious, ideological or racial-related persecutions),
related to warlike conflicts (urban, civil and
revolutionary wars, conventional wars, guerrillas,
biological, chemical and nuclear wars)
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