GEO Brasil - UNEP

the state of urban and industrial areas
the state of the environment in Brazil
estimated that only 28 percent have
an appropriate destination The other
72 percent are disposed of in garbage
dumps in the open air or thrown in
valleys and rivers (IBGE 2001)
Among the environmental sanitation
factors that make pressure on urban
environment, there is also the
insufficient attention to urban
drainage issues, which are
accountable for periodic floods In
most cities, the planning actions are
not able to prevent the effects of
rainfalls, either by carrying out
palliative blockage works in rivers with
the usual flood flow, in an attempt to
stop them from flooding the lowlands
within their area, or by wrongly prevent
the maintenance of the areas for
natural blockage and slow percolation
of rainfall into the water table The
number of parks, green areas and
linear parks in the bottom of valleys is
insufficient, and they should have
been associated to the preservation
of lowlands with the adequate use for
such purpose
43 Urban Transportation
The chaotic scenario of urban
transportation, specially in the
metropolitan areas, is evidence of
constant fall of the population
mobility rate and growth of the
motorization rate, individual
transportation prevailing over
collective transportation In turn, the
distribution of motorised modes
indicates the great importance of
buses as mass transportation,
considering the suspension or
insufficiency of investments in
railways or subways
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