Brazil's Drought Polygon
The interior of Brasil's northeastern region is known as the
Drought Polygon, an irregular shaped region where people live under
recurring threat of severe drought.
"... the peninsular bend which has its extremity in the Cape of São
Roque serves as a point of convergence for the inner boundaries of
six states - Sergipe, Alagôas, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Ceará ,
and Piauí - which either touch on it or lie but a few miles distant.
It is, accordingly, natural that the climatic vicissitudes of these
states should exhibit a common intensity, especially in the case of
that acute manifestation expressed in a word which holds a maximum
of terror for the natives in these parts - the word 'drought.'"
- Euclides da Cunha, Os Sertões, 1902
Brasil's Nordeste region forms the bulge of South America that juts
into the Atlantic Ocean. A semi-arid backland, the sertão, lies
inland from the Nordeste's humid coastal strip. Rainfall in the
sertão is low and irregular, and the interior is covered by a thin
scrub forest known locally as the caatinga.
The low and variable precipitation drives a cycle of torrential rain
and devastating drought. The Nordeste's dry season generally runs from
July to January, but it may persist for more than a year during a drought.
In Brasil the sertanejos, the people of the backlands, are known for their
perseverance in the face of natural disaster. The catastrophic drought of
1877-79 may have killed half the people living in the sertão. Today
about one third of Brasil's people live in the Nordeste.
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