Transposition of the São Francisco River and socio-demographic vulnerability: challenges to the well-being of the countryside population

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to verify how the population mobility resulting from the transposition of São Francisco River, can intensify a socio-demographic vulnerability of the urban spaces of the Area of Direct Influence (AID in Portuguese) of this enterprise. The Transposition Project is located in the northern semiarid region of northeastern Brazil, a place marked by frequent droughts and social and economic inequality. Originally designed to mitigate the effects of drought, the Transposition Project, in part, brings with it not only environmental, but mainly social and demographic effects. In this context, population mobility is one of the demographic issues arising from the Transposition Project, as it is a component capable of rapidly changing the size and composition of the population in the impacted areas, raising concerns about social issues (poverty and social exclusion). In Brazil, little has been discussed about the dimension of population displacements around the theme of megaprojects, especially considering the aspects of socio-demographic vulnerability. Based on information from the 2010 Demographic Census and on the theoretical framework of national and international literature on the theme, an attempt was made to create a synthetic index of socio-demographic vulnerability to analyze the effects of population mobility resulting from the Transposition Project. The main results show that the Transposition Project worsens, to a certain extent, the challenges to be faced by the population of the places closest to the construction channels, given the fragility of human (health, education) and physical (housing, displacement) capital of migrants residing in AID.