Coping with Droughts

The challenge of coping with droughts is one of Embrapa's important lines of work, especially due to their occurrence in the Brazilian Semi-arid region. Studies related to this theme have been grouped within the company in the “Portfolio Coping with Droughts in the Brazilian Semi-arid”, encompassing works in Brazilian cities that are inside the semi-arid environment, the production region that is most affected by the occurrence of droughts.

Drought is a natural weather phenomenon that causes negative impacts on agricultural production systems and on the life of the populations that inhabit the 1262 municipalities in the semi-arid region of the Brazilian Northeast. Historically, the effect of droughts in the Brasilian semi-arid region would be relieved with emergency measures starting from the occurrence of this kind of event. Action that target the management of the risk of droughts, aimed at reducing their social and economic impacts, is thus an important tool for regional development.

For over forty years, Embrapa has developed, adapted and disseminated a series of technologies of great use to relieve and cope with droughts in the Brazilian Semi-arid Region, such as rural cistern, water traps for "salvation irrigation", underground dams, the systems to store rainware in situ, biossaline agriculture, management practices to increase soil humidity, small-scale irrigation with alternative water sources and the use of suitable forage plants that are adapted to the Caatinga.

Although these technologies have high potential to promote innovation, especially in the Brazilian semi-arid region, its adoption still needs to be expanded. Moreover, the strategies and public policy to cope with droughts must be in line with suitable technologies following a logic of territorial development integrated with the conservation of natural resources and based on their potential to ultimately ensure a sustainable production, improve the quality of life of the rural population, and help such people stay in the fields.

In addition, coping with droughts requires an efficient system to monitor and forecast the occurrence of severe events, in order to issue precise warning to give farmers and public agents conditions to adequately plan so that they suffer minimal negative consequences.

However, from the perspective of climate change, the technologies that Embrapa developed to cope with droughts in the Semi-arid region are strategic, since they can be adapted to be used in other regions of the country, where the scenario of water restriction may be intensifiec in the future.

However, the goal of Embrapa's research action that target droughts is to contribute to the improvement of production conditions and quality of life in areas of water scarcity, through the generation of knowledge and technologies, facilitating innovative solutions to monitor, relieve and mitigate the effects of droughts on the productivity and sustainability of agriculture, valuing and conserving the potentialities of the natural resources available in the Brazilian Semi-arid Region.