Understanding human development, poverty and water scarcity patterns in the Brazilian Semi-arid through cluster analysis

In Brazil, the Semi-arid is the poorest region in the country, where a significant part of the population is not adapted to drought and fluctuations in rainfall. Based on multivariate methods, I investigate here the spatial patterns of drought and socioeconomic variables between 2000 and 2010 within the Brazilian Semi-arid. In this work, I find five well-defined socio-environment clusters presenting distinct characteristics: developing cluster, demographic gains cluster, stagnated cluster, socio-environmental challenges cluster and undeveloped cluster. My results show that there are vast areas in the Brazilian Semi-arid that demand development strategies and deep structural changes. Policies for development and poverty alleviation focused essentially on increasing income will not necessarily have an immediate impact on other important social indicators, such as mortality and illiteracy rates. Multidimensional approaches and multiscale interventions considering partnerships among all levels of government (local, state and federal) are essential to overcome this vicious cycle linking environment constrains with poverty and low development levels. Finally, this paper shows that integrating socioeconomic, demographic and environmental indicators is vital to understanding development patterns throughout the Brazilian Semi-arid.