Extreme Droughts and Socioeconomic Impacts in Brazil’s North Region: 2001–2024

Droughts are recurrent phenomena in the Amazon, and several major drought episodes have affected the region during the twenty-first century. This study examines the 2005, 2010, 2015–2016, and prolonged 2023–2024 drought episodes and evaluates the human and economic impacts recorded for federally recognized drought declarations across Brazil’s North Region at the municipal level, in the Brazilian Amazon. In contrast to much of the existing literature, which focuses on forest resilience, carbon dynamics, and hydrology, the analysis uses Disaster Information System (S2iD/Atlas) records to characterize municipal-scale socioeconomic impacts. The federally recognized drought disaster records are substantially larger in recent analytical periods: 53 municipalities and 87,782 affected people in 2010 compared with 193 municipalities and 2,127,164 affected people in 2024. However, 2023 and 2024 are treated as separate S2iD reporting periods within the same prolonged drought episode, not as independent meteorological droughts. Because reporting capacity, administrative procedures, exposure, and vulnerability vary through time and space, these records are interpreted as documented and federally recognized impacts rather than as an exhaustive measure of the actual temporal change in drought impacts. Precipitation anomalies are used only as physical context, not for direct causal attribution. These findings highlight the need to strengthen municipal drought-risk governance, reporting capacity, impact-based monitoring, preparedness, and mitigation.