Delimitation of the Brazilian semi-arid region: Assessment of municipal inclusion criteria
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14808/sci.plena.2025.119912Keywords:
aridity index, BR-DWGD, climate changeAbstract
Semi-arid regions are highly sensitive to climate change, as they are characterized by irregular rainfall patterns. The delimitation of the Brazilian Semi-arid Region is conducted by the Superintendency for the Development of the Northeast (SUDENE), which established the following criteria for municipal inclusion in this territory: annual total rainfall equal to or less than 800 mm; Thornthwaite’s Aridity Index (AI) equal to or less than 0.5; and a water deficit percentage equal to or greater than 60%, considering all days of the year. However, studies addressing this topic remain scarce. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess the delimitation of the Brazilian semi-arid region according to the criteria of annual precipitation and aridity index, identifying which municipalities are effectively encompassed by these parameters. For this purpose, we used data from the Brazilian Daily Weather Gridded Data (BR-DWGD) for the periods 1981–2010, which supported the current delimitation, and 1991–2020, used for the preliminary delimitation analysis. The data were processed with the aid of R and QGIS. The results indicate that the current delimitation excludes municipalities that meet the criteria and includes others that do not, a discrepancy that is even more evident in the preliminary delimitation published in 2021. We conclude that methodological choices exert a decisive influence on the definition of the Brazilian semi-arid region, while political factors or the lack of standardized criteria make the process susceptible to debate.
Keywords: aridity index, BR-DWGD, climate change.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Ronaldo Guilherme Santos Lima, Izaias Rodrigues de Souza Neto, Vania Elisabete Schneider , Ludmilson Abritta Mendes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work
