Unicamp and 15 other Brazilian universities have signed a partnership with the Ministry of Cities and will be responsible for preparing the Municipal Risk Reduction Plan (PMRR) in 20 Brazilian municipalities, located in four of the country's five regions.
The PMRR is a planning instrument to mitigate the negative effects of climate change and socio-natural disasters, such as floods, landslides and urban erosion. The Ministry's proposal is that university professionals carry out a diagnosis of the problems in each of the qualified cities and draw up action plans to combat, prevent and reduce risks.
The plans will be carried out in the cities of Manaus (AM), Belém (PA), Olinda and Jaboatão dos Guararapes (PE), Natal (RN), Candeias and Ilhéus (BA), Itaquaquecetuba and Mauá (SP), Niterói and Angra dos Reis (RJ), Serra (ES), Contagem and João Monlevade (MG), Porto Alegre and Santa Maria (RS), São José and Florianópolis (SC), Colombo and Paranaguá (PR).
The Unicamp team will be coordinated by professor Jefferson Picanço, from the Institute of Geosciences, and will develop the Municipal Risk Reduction Plan for the municipality of Itaquaquecetuba, in Greater São Paulo, a city with around 370 thousand inhabitants.
Picanço says that Unicamp is putting together a multidisciplinary team to respond to demand. They will be geologists, geographers, sociologists, engineers, architects and cartographic engineers, as well as students in these areas. In total, the team must have around 20 professionals. The expectation is that the team will begin working on the Itaquaquecetuba plan in March 2024, with the work expected to be completed in 1 year and six months. The group will identify critical areas and those sectors that can be considered at risk.
One of the new features of the process, according to the professor, is that there will be direct channels for communities to participate in the development of action plans. “We will hold consultations and public hearings and workshops with people who live in the region. Often, the identification of problems and solutions can come from these conversations with people”, believes Picanço.
According to him, the way the plan has been developed — with interactions between the Ministry and universities — is a “paradigm change”. The professor also says that the process only tends to benefit from the direct participation of the population. “ The process is being very healthy and represents a change in level. Without the population's comments, the project would only be technical and, therefore, could be lame”, he assesses.
Picanço says that the project is also important for the University. “It increases the University’s insertion in projects related to disaster risk management, both in promoting new ideas and solutions, and in training people with expertise in this area”, he explains.
For the Civil Defense coordinator and president of the Permanent Multidisciplinary Commission for Coping with Risk Areas in the Municipality of Itaquaquecetuba, Anderson Marchiori, the partnership, which involves the Ministry of Cities, will be of great importance for the municipality. “It will allow for an update of the PMRR, which is a technical document that helps the municipality’s management to direct public policies for risk prevention and mitigation. And, also, at no cost to municipal coffers,” he highlights.
In Partnership with
Between the 12th, 13th and 14th of December, the XNUMXst National Meeting of Municipal Risk Reduction Plans took place in Brasília. The event was organized by the Department of Risk Mitigation and Prevention, through the National Secretariat of Peripheries of the Ministry of Cities, in partnership with the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz).
The event was attended by professors and researchers from 16 universities and representatives from 20 municipalities selected for the preparation of Municipal Risk Reduction Plans, as well as researchers from the Institute of Technological Research of the state of São Paulo (IPT).
The Minister of Cities, Jader Filho, recognized the urgent need to increase investments in risk prevention in cities and, especially, in the peripheries. “Solving drainage problems, slopes, is not cheap,” he commented. “And if we no longer want to see scenes like floods, droughts and lives being lost, we need more resources,” he warned.
