Human Causes Of Drought - Brazil

Question 1

Main human activities associated with droughts risk

Answer 1

over-abstraction of surface water + aquifers

Question 2

Brazil

Answer 2

2014-15 industries, farmers + domestic users = Brazil increasingly used groundwater until the rivers began to run low
Poor + rural communities suffered because they only has access to groundwater because of rivers running low

Question 3

Causes of the over-abstraction

Answer 3

Brazils gov introduced a charge for drilling wells of around US$35,000 - 100,000
Residents drilled illegally because they couldn’t afford the charge meaning the water abstracted was not monitored
Hydrologists believed that the gov’s official records of wells drilled = 2014 only represent = 1/3 total as 70% of wells were illegal

Question 4

Problems with over-abstraction

Answer 4

Gov’s we’ll charge resulted in illegal drilling
Illegal wells = shallower + have not percolated deep into the bedrock. Water from illegal wells is less filtered by bedrock + may contain industrial + agricultural pollutants with higher levels = bacteria
An inc = poor sanitation + water-borne diseases happens if the water is X filtered further