Caatinga had the highest number of fires in 2023 since 2010 – 01/02/2024 – Environment

The year 2023, which accumulated climate disasters and extreme temperatures, was also the record holder in more than a decade for fires in the caatinga.

According to data from the BDQueimadas system, from Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), more than 21,500 hot spots were recorded in the biome, the highest rate since 2010, when the biome had 21,800 hot spots. The system uses satellite images to detect fires larger than 30 m².

The number represents an increase of 39% compared to the previous year and is yet another factor impacted by the occurrence of El Niño, which brought more heat and less rain to the region.

The phenomenon is characterized by the warming of Pacific waters in the equatorial region — which, in Brazil, translates into more drought in the North and Northeast regions and excess precipitation in the South and Southeast.

The caatinga is the only entirely Brazilian biome, occupying an area equivalent to around 10% of the national territory and encompassing the states of Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Piauí, Sergipe and the north of Minas Gerais.

According to the coordinator of the caatinga team on the Mapbiomas platform, Washington Rocha, professor at the State University of Feira de Santana, fire never or very rarely happens naturally in the biome.

“It can be said that the predominant causes of fires in this region are due to human actions, especially the use of fires to clear areas to be prepared for cultivation and which, due to inadequate management, become fires”, he explains.

This type of use of fire becomes more dangerous when weather conditions are conducive to the spread of flames, such as dry weather, strong wind and high temperatures.

“But there are also reports of arson fires, those that are deliberately set as a way of encouraging deforestation, to make new areas viable for agriculture or pasture”, adds the researcher.

He states that the areas with the greatest deforestation activity are in the vicinity of agricultural and livestock borders, close to renewable energy generation infrastructures and also close to the São Francisco River transposition channels.

With biodiversity adapted to high temperatures, the region is rich in endemism. A recent article estimates that there are at least 3,347 species of plants in the biome, 15% of which only exist there.

According to Mapbiomas, the net loss of vegetation (balance between deforestation and regeneration) in the caatinga between 1985 and 2022 was 10.8%, while the area dedicated to agriculture in the biome grew by 21.8%. In the same period, almost 105 thousand km² of vegetation were affected by fire in the biome.

Most of the hot spots in the caatinga in 2023 were concentrated in Piauí (34%), followed by Bahia (23%) and Ceará (23%).

“From an environmental point of view, high-intensity fires cause irreversible losses to biota, especially in sensitive ecosystems and conservation units”, says Rocha. “In the caatinga, there is a more latent threat, in the so-called ASD [áreas suscetíveis à desertificação]with the possibility of recurring fires potentially triggering this process.”

According to the scientist, the regions of Cabrobó, in Pernambuco, and Seridó, in Rio Grande do Norte and Paraíba, are examples of desertification centers that are expanding. Canudos, in Bahia, is another example of ASD threatened by the advance of deforestation.

The climate of the caatinga is semi-arid – but a recent study by Inpe in partnership with Cemaden (National Center for Natural Disaster Monitoring and Alerts) recorded, between 1990 and 2020, the appearance of an area defined as arid in northern Bahia. This type of climate had never been observed in the country in previous decades.

The study found that there is a tendency for aridity to increase throughout the country, with the exception of the southern region and the coast of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The researchers concluded that the semi-arid region has grown in the country, advancing at a rate of more than 75 thousand km², on average, every decade since 1960.

The increase in aridity in the caatinga is pointed out by scientists as one of the consequences of climate change caused by human activities, which increases the chances of desertification.

This type of change would cause the migration and extinction of species, in addition to impacting the availability of water and modifying meteorological parameters essential for agriculture, with economic repercussions and on the water and food security of local populations.

For Washington Rocha, the attention given to the conservation of the caatinga is still “insufficient and inefficient”.

“[Isso se deve] largely due to the lack of knowledge about the characteristics of the biome, often associated with the perception of a lifeless biome”, says the researcher, stating that there is a lack of understanding of the process of plant defoliation in the dry seasons, an adaptation of the species to that habitat.

“This lack of public policies is demonstrated by regulatory flexibility, non-recognition of the biome as national heritage and the low percentage of protected areas in relation to the biome area”, he points out.