How Long Will We Keep Mourning the Same Floods?

The images of flooded streets, homeless families, and entire cities in a state of emergency are not isolated incidents.

Recent tragedies, such as the flooding in Rio Grande do Sul, which left thousands homeless, children orphaned, and entire communities without any support structure, expose a reality that repeats itself in Brazil year after year.

It is not a matter of chance. It is not just a matter of nature.

At first sight, it may seem that floods are just “inevitable natural disasters.” However, upon closer inspection, we realize that this reality is the result of a combination of climatic factors, disorderly urbanization, insufficient infrastructure, social inequality, and global environmental changes that make everything even more critical and challenging.

Brazil and the climate

Brazil is located in the planet's intertropical zone, that “middle band” of the globe that covers much of Africa, Indonesia, and most of our territory. This means a climate marked by high temperatures and two well-defined seasons: one dry and one rainy.

When the rainy season arrives, especially in the summer, in regions such as the Southeast, the intensity and concentration of storms put cities that were already vulnerable to the test. Steep slopes, floodplains, and urban valleys, such as in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte, are scenarios where the force of water meets fragile structures.

Global phenomena such as El Niño, La Niña, and global warming further intensify this situation, making rainfall more irregular, prolonged, and destructive.

The price of disorderly urban growth

Brazil urbanized quickly, faster than its cities were able to learn to live with water—without planning that respected rivers, springs, and naturally swampy areas.

In just a few decades, the advance of housing developments and densification in peripheral areas transformed natural landscapes into continuous concrete carpets. In this movement, we lost sight of the fact that the city is also a watershed: every roof, street, and square is part of a system that captures, conducts, and dissipates rainwater.

• Riverbanks, hillsides, and mangroves were occupied due to a lack of housing alternatives.

• A population boom in the 1960s to 1980s encouraged the expansion of cities without reserving sufficient green areas, which would function as “natural sponges.”

  
  

Planning often came after occupation; zoning gave way to day-to-day exceptions; oversight failed to keep pace with the real estate market; social housing did not offer enough safe alternatives. The result? Construction lags behind the city, and emergencies lag behind construction.

Today, we review this process with more critical eyes, in the face of growing environmental and urban awareness, but the repercussions still weigh heavily on each rainy season.

Infrastructure that did not keep pace with the population

While other countries underwent technological and industrial revolutions earlier, Brazil progressed unevenly. Urban expansion raced ahead, while drainage, sanitation, and water supply systems lagged behind.

Was it a lack of resources? A lack of technical feasibility? A lack of political priority? Perhaps a little of everything... What is certain is that, in the face of rapid urban growth, planning and structural investments did not keep pace.

• Storm drains and storm sewers are often clogged with trash.

• There is a lack of containment reservoirs (“piscinões”) and adequate channels to drain or treat water.

• Urban planning has lagged behind the speed of occupation.

What we see today is the portrait of a reactive infrastructure: instead of preventing problems, it merely attempts to remedy them, always lagging behind the population's demands. It is as if the city were built on a permanent debt to its own territory.

And the price is paid every rainy season: paralyzed streets, entire neighborhoods flooded, families left homeless. Water, which is a resource, becomes a threat. And the lack of infrastructure continues to turn natural phenomena into urban tragedies.

Social and political issues: the harshest side of the problem

The “drama” of flooding is also the “drama” of inequality. The lowest-income population is the most exposed, living in high-risk areas because they are the only accessible spaces.

The responses of public authorities, in turn, tend to be reactive: hasty rescues, makeshift shelters, emergency distribution of supplies, and then the promise of reconstruction. It is a constant cycle that has been repeating itself for decades, with different governments in different cities.

Little is invested in preventive solutions, such as environmental education, housing policies, responsible zoning, and long-term structural works. Is it a challenge? Undoubtedly. It involves high costs, the setting of common goals, political conflicts, cultural change, and the willingness to break with privileges. But things cannot remain as they are.

This cycle creates a chain reaction where vulnerable families remain in unsafe areas, the government spends more on emergencies than on prevention, and society as a whole bears the risks and losses.

Climate change

As if urban heritage were not enough, we now live under the impact and growing attention of global climate change. More intense and frequent rainfall, extreme heat waves, rising sea levels, and events once considered “exceptional” have become routine.

Every year, records are broken, showing that the challenge is not only local but global.

Between rivers, between choices

Floods in Brazil are not just natural phenomena. They are the direct result of the interaction between climate, urban choices, social inequalities, and failures in public management.

As long as we continue to invest little in preventive planning and a lot in emergency remediation, we will continue to repeat this story.

For those who wish to delve deeper into the subject, the documentary Entre Rios (2009) is a cultural and necessary work. Produced as a final course project, it clearly portrays the relationship between urbanization and flooding in the city of São Paulo. A portrait that could be extended to so many other Brazilian cities.

The future demands more than promises. It demands collective awareness (that is, thinking beyond one's own needs), profound public policies, and real social engagement, capable of transcending governments, overcoming ideological conflicts and parties, and fleeting interests. Because, ultimately, what is at stake is not just the preservation of cities or the reduction of material damage. What is at stake is the very essence of the right that underpins all others: the right to life.