MELYSSA DA SILVA MOREIRA PINHEIRO
ABSTRACT
The Brazilian Semi-arid is the largest in territory and is also the most populous semiarid region in the world. Its rainfall is characterized by being irregularly distributed and
concentrated in a few months of the year, usually in the first six months. Most of
Brazil’s semi-arid region is located in the Northeast of the country, where Ceará is the
state with the largest participation of municipalities officially recognized as belonging to
the ecosystem. The climatic characteristics make it susceptible to the drought
phenomenon and desertification, which also has human action inducing. Among the
municipalities of Ceará in the semi-arid, stand out for this study Limoeiro do Norte
and Morada Nova, located in the Jaguaribe Valley Micro region. The choice of these
municipalities is justified by the fact that they are included in the areas subject to
desertification (ASD) of Ceará). The research aims to show the evolution of rainfall of
Limoeiro do Norte and Morada Nova from 1974 to 2017, characterizing rainfall levels
according to their intensity, assessing the instabilities in each of these periods and assess
how food crops (beans, cassava and maize) behave in each of these municipalities. Data
from IBGE and FUNCEME were used and coefficients of variation (CV) were used to
measure the instability / stability of different climate types for the municipalities. It was
also used the CV as a measure of instability / stability of land productivity, harvested
areas and average crop prices, evaluated within each rainfall period identified in the
research.
Key words: Farm Agricultural Production; Dry Food Production; Drought;
Desertification.MELYSSA – MONOGRAFIA JA NO MEU SITE 23-11-2019