MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil launches platform to spot climate vulnerable terrain

“Understanding risk and vulnerability helps us adapt to changes in the climate,” Minister Góes said. Photo: REUTERS

Brazil's Ministry of Integration and Regional Development (MIDR) and Microsoft do Brasil Monday launched the ClimaAdapt platform, a tool that uses public data from different environmental agencies to identify regions nationwide particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events, Agencia Brasil reported.

According to Minister Waldez Góes, the platform is an important step in mitigating and adapting to climate change. “Understanding the vulnerability to climate change is important for us to better understand the risks that the population is exposed to when extreme rainfall, tropical depressions, extratropical cyclones, severe droughts, and other extreme weather events occur and thus develop climate resilience,” said the minister.

The platform is automated and displays a map with an accuracy of 100 meters. The ClimaAdapt system incorporates, so far, 15 layers of information, which can be analyzed individually or together. It contemplates overlapping specific vulnerability layers, such as soil types, terrain slope, GDP per capita, and HDI, among other information.

According to MIDR, vulnerabilities are classified as the specific environmental, social, and climatic characteristics of a given terrain that make it more susceptible or not to adverse climate impacts. The platform also brings two specific models, one to verify sea level rise as a result of climate change and another to identify critical stretches of federal and state highways to identify areas of flooding and landslides.

“Understanding risk and vulnerability helps us adapt to changes in the climate, which are already happening and recurring, thus helping to better direct public resources and actions and programs to prevent and mitigate the extreme impacts of climate change,” said Góes.

For Microsoft Brazil, the project “represents an important opportunity to use our technology to support the development of solutions that positively impact the planet and society,” said company Chairwoman Tânia Cosentino.

(Source: Agencia Brasil)