GEO Brasil - UNEP

In the Brazilian metropolitan regions,
the mobility rate can barely reach 60
percent of world average. The homework-home
travel time has increased
significantly. The inhabitants/
vehicles proportion in São Paulo, for
example, rose from 6 x 1 to 2 x 1 in a
twenty-year period (1977-1997). The
average speed of buses lowered
from 22 to 15 kilometres per hour in
ten years. The motorization rate in
Brazil rose from 72 inhabitants/
vehicle in 1960 to just over five in
1998, and it is expected to get at 4.3
in 2005. The daily average number of
trips per inhabitant tends to rise
from 1.5 in 1995 to 1.7 in 2005 (MMA,
2000 A).
Graph 11 - Drainage network discharge points, by type, according to large regions -
Brazil - 2000
%
11.9l
7.5
20.7
75.7
2.0
7.7
2.7
15.3
86.5
1.8
23.8
4.8
Brazil North Northeast Southeast South Midwest
Discontinuous water courses
35.9
44.1
2.9
6.2
8.3
12.9
88.6
1.2
8.1
9.7
18.0
87.3
2.2
8.2
9.8
11.4
85.4
2.5
the state of the environment in Brazil
The means of transportation are
acknowledged as one of the main
sources of air pollution in the urban
environment, and it can reach
hazardous proportions to public
health when the dispersion of the
gases produced and particulate
materials is harmed by the lack of
wind. In accordance with studies
sponsored by the World Bank, 20
percent of the pollutants in the
atmosphere in Rio de Janeiro
Metropolitan Region is caused by
the means of transportation 2 .
The soil impermeability and also the
improper occupation of the depths
of valleys are largely responsible for
the periodic problem – on each rainy
season, in relation to floods, traffic
jams and blocks, as well as threats
to populations living in risk areas.
The piping and embankment works
carried out in rivers up to the
moment only aggravate the problem
because they take more water, and
faster, to those courses, acting as a
flood area transfer (MMA 2000).
Public/private free areas
Storage/ detention reservoirs
Permanent water courses
Others
Source: National Research on Basic Sanitation - IBGE - 2002
Box 2 - Public transportation model
The mayor of Curitiba describes his city as “an urban model both to developed
and developing countries”. Its urban transportation system encourages residential
and business developments, in harmony with the urban and zoning
plans of the city. In 1973, the Curitiba Research and Urban Planning Institute -
IPPUC - developed special buses designed to mass transportation. These were
later adapted and expanded in order to face up to the increasing needs of the
population of the 80’s and 90’s. The system currently takes two million people
a day. The transportation net provides four integrated transportation alternatives
within 12 municipalities of the metropolitan region. The massive use of the
public transportation system in Curitiba has reduced the number of cars in the
streets, decreasing the levels of air pollution, smog incidence, and the risks of
respiratory diseases. Curitiba has also become the first city in Brazil to use a
less polluting kind of fuel, decreasing emissions of atmospheric particles in
more than 43%.
Source: Taniguchi, 2001
1
See “Política de transportes de passageiros para a Região Metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro – 2000”
189