Eternal grief in City of God: socio-environmental inequalities connecting the flood disasters of 1966 and 1996 in Rio de Janeiro

Secondary Sources:

Dereczynski, C. P., R. N. Calado, and A. B. Barros. “Chuvas Extremas No Município Do Rio de Janeiro: Histórico a Partir Do Século XIX.” Anuário Do Instituto de Geociências – UFRJ 40, no. 2 (June 10, 2017): 17–30. https://doi.org/10.11137/2017_2_17_30.
This article analyzes all the events of extreme rain registered in the city of Rio de Janeiro between 1881 and 1996. To evaluate this period, the researchers accessed two sets of historical data on pluviometric information, summing a total of 63 years of complete rain data for every day. The methodology included a pre-selection of all events that had more than 100 mm of rain in one day, totalizing 100 events. Of those, 82 were selected due to the level of damage caused. Considering the 63 years of data, the average occurrence of extreme rain events in the city of Rio is 1.3 events per year. Once the events were selected, researchers looked for news articles from several newspapers in the city to collect data on reported damages from the rains. One of the conclusions is the constant presence of discussion in news articles on who should bear the responsibility for the damages, among local, state, and federal government entities (until 1960 Rio de Janeiro was the capital of Brazil, from 1960 to 1975, it has been a city-state called Estado da Guanabara, and since 1975 it is the capital city of the state of Rio de Janeiro). According to the study, the most impactful flood events were the ones in January 1966, February 1988, and February 1996. This article contributes significantly to my project, as it demonstrates that the events of 1966 and 1996, which I am analyzing, are among the most impactful in the vast history of floods in Rio de Janeiro.

Maia, Andréa Casa Nova, and Lise Sedrez. “Narrativas de Um Dilúvio Carioca: Memória e Natureza Na Grande Enchente de 1966.” História Oral 14, no. 2 (October 22, 2012). https://doi.org/10.51880/ho.v14i2.239.
This article uses the methodology of oral history to analyze the social impact of the mega flood of 1966 in the city of Rio de Janeiro – an event that left around 250 people dead and around 50,000 people homeless. The researchers started the study with the community around the catholic church located at Praça da Bandeira, one of the main locations related with the flood in people’s memory, as it is a central point that connects several zones of the city. During the flood, a solidarity network was formed by local institutions such as the church and local schools. The displaced families (who came from several “morros” – hills occupied by favelas such as Rocinha, Morro do São Carlos, and Morro do Borel, as well as other neighborhoods) were sheltered in a stadium called Maracanãzinho. From there, they were taken to live in a new neighborhood built by the municipal government in a far-away region of the city: Cidade de Deus (City of God) in the then semi-rural West Zone. The interviewees in this research project are women who moved to Cidade de Deus after the floods. They comment on the lack of infrastructure in the neighborhood when families were moved there, the difficulties to socialize as there were people from several different places moved to that neighborhood (“different cultures”), and that the area was very inaccessible with scarce transportation infrastructure to go to work in the South Zone of the city (where families came from). The authors highlight the gender hierarchies and their inversion during the time of disasters, as well as class relations in this context. It is implied that the floods were seen by the local government as an opportunity to remove families from favelas in the richer part of the city (South Zone) to the semi-rural area that was about to be urbanized (West Zone), in both ways benefiting from real estate speculation and economic gains from urban development projects. This article contributes immensely to my project, as it demonstrates how the flood of 1966 contributed to populate the neighborhood Cidade de Deus, and how that process of population transfer was felt by the people who had to move.

Maia, Andréa Casa Nova, and Vicente Saul Moreira dos Santos. Rio, cidade submersa: Imagem e História das inundações cariocas. Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Onirá artes gráfica, 2025. https://www.oniraeditora.com.br/riocidadesubmersa.pdf.
This book presents the history of floods in the city of Rio de Janeiro, from the early 1900’s to the late 1960’s. The methodology used is the analysis of newspaper/magazine articles and cartoons, complemented by a few oral history interviews. This book, published in April 2025, provides a turning point to think urban planning in Rio de Janeiro, as it looks at the history of the city from the angle of flood events and how different sectors of society have been building century-old discourses about flooding. As someone who is not from Rio de Janeiro, I was surprised to learn about how old some flood-related discourses are and how little they have changed from events that happened decades (and in some cases, more than a century) ago. This source has offered great insight for my project, particularly chapter 3, which presents the devastating floods of 1966 and 1967 in details as they were reported by the local press.

Malta, Fernanda Siqueira, Eduarda Marques Da Costa, and Alessandra Magrini. “Índice de Vulnerabilidade Socioambiental: Uma Proposta Metodológica Utilizando o Caso Do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.” Ciência & Saúde Coletiva 22, no. 12 (December 2017): 3933–44. https://doi.org/10.1590/1413-812320172212.25032017.
This is a quantitative study combining data from Brazil’s census, Geo-Rio Foundation, and Rio de Janeiro state’s Public Safety Institute. It assesses the level of socio-environmental vulnerability of the population in all neighborhoods and regional units of the city of Rio de Janeiro. This was done through the development of an index that includes social, economic, and urban infrastructure processes that connect quality of life precarity (labor, education, income, sanitation, mobility) with environmental, health, and public safety conditions. This contributes to my project as it presents a series of indicators that can be analyzed to assess social-environmental vulnerability.

Medeiros, Felipe Souza De, Mariza Reis Almeida, Márcio Araújo De Souza, and Kátia Eliane Santos Avelar. “A Urbanização do Município do Rio De Janeiro: Uma Visão Sobre as Enchentes e Inundações.” Sustentare 4, no. 1 (2020). https://doi.org/10.5892/st.v4i1.6164.
This article traces back the history of the city of Rio de Janeiro’s urbanization to understand the reasons behind so many flooding events in the city. It identifies an urbanization model based on economic growth as the reason for the city’s development to have happened in the way that it. More specifically, it explains the concentration of the city around Guanabara Bay, due to the transportation networks and commerce that were present in this area. Due to a need to connect this area to other parts through transportation networks, the city became more and more paved. Because of this development style, local ecosystems were deteriorated, causing the environmental issues that are ubiquitous today, particularly flood events. This article contributes to my project as it connects the flood problems with patterns in the city’s historical urban development.

Milanez, Bruno, and Igor Ferraz Fonseca. “Justiça Climática e Eventos Climáticos Extremos: Uma Análise da Percepção Social no Brasil.” Revista Terceiro Incluído Vol. 1., no. No. 2. (2011): 82–100. https://doi.org/10.5216/teri.v1i2.17842.
This study presents the origins of the term “climate justice” (from a Brazilian perspective) and analyses news media reports from two flood events in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. It concludes that even though events permeated by climate injustice were already perceptible in Brazil at the time (2009/2010), the discourse of climate justice had not yet been adopted in the country (by stakeholders such as media outlets, society in general, and the affected communities). This article contributes to my project as it brings the perspective of climate justice as a new discourse about floods in Brazilian cities, in light of climate change discussions that are proper of the twenty-first century.

Sedrez, Lise, and Andrea Casa Nova Maia. “Enchentes que Destroem, Enchentes que Constroem: Natureza e Memória da Cidade de Deus Nas Chuvas de 1966 e 1967*.” Revista do Arquivo Geral da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, no. 8 (2014): 183–200. http://wpro.rio.rj.gov.br/revistaagcrj/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/e08_a10.pdf.
This article, published in the journal of Rio de Janeiro’s City Archive, presents the history of the floods of 1966 and 1967, as they affected the neighborhood Cidade de Deus (City of God). The main argument of this article is that floods are not only “destroying forces,” they are also “constructing forces” as they end up influencing and determining action toward urban re-development which ultimately changes the landscape of the city. The authors see the neighborhood of Cidade de Deus as a space that was created by the 1966 and 1967 flood. Therefore, they see the flood as a process of urban development. This study is based on oral history interviews and it attempts at providing the perspective of vulnerable groups (poorer people who were affected by the flood) into history, and particularly environmental history. It contributes to my project significantly as it sheds light on how the floods and the process of moving were felt by people from poorer areas who ended being relocated to Cidade de Deus. This source helped me understand how the development of Cidade de Deus is intimately connected with the mega floods from the 1960’s.

Souza Santos, Andrea, Suzana Kahn Ribeiro, and Victor Hugo Souza De Abreu. “Addressing Climate Change in Brazil: Is Rio de Janeiro City Acting on Adaptation Strategies?” In 2020 International Conference and Utility Exhibition on Energy, Environment and Climate Change (ICUE), 1–11. Pattaya, Thailand: IEEE, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICUE49301.2020.9307010.
This article presents an institutionalist perspective on climate adaptation in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The study reviews literature on climate adaptation, highlighting the main risk factors for cities/urban environments in Brazil, and specifically for Rio. Cities, or urban spaces, are considered more prone to vulnerability, particularly if they are on the coast. A vulnerability factor for Rio de Janeiro, for example, is rising sea level – which may affect more than 10% of the city’s area. Regarding disasters, the main risks for Brazilian cities include flash floods, landslides, and droughts. In the case of Rio, the occurrence of extreme rain events is recurrent in the city’s history, and an increase in these events has been observed. The impact of climate change in Brazilian coastal cities has direct effects on ecosystems and populations; as well as indirect effects, as it impacts the provision of services such as sanitation, health, and transportation. The level of social vulnerability in Rio is high due to its low Human Development Index, in addition to high population density. In face of all these risks, the authors observe the necessity for the municipality to develop and implement an adaptation plan. They evaluate the plans and actions the city has undertaken in that field, including individual indicators of resilience assessment, resilient youth program, reuse of rainwater project, urban reforestation programs, and heat waves and heat islands assessment. The authors also evaluate the City of Rio de Janeiro’s Climate Adaptation Plan. They conclude that the guidelines proposed by the plan can make the city more resilient, however, the local governance aspect lacks transparency and accountability on the execution of the plan. This article contributes to my project as it shows how different sectors of Rio de Janeiro (engineering schools, local administration) understand and try to resolve the problem of climate adaptation (including floods) currently and into the future.

Swyngedouw, Erik, and Nikolas C Heynen. “Urban Political Ecology, Justice and the Politics of Scale.” Antipode 35, no. 5 (November 2003): 898–918. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2003.00364.x.
This is a theoretical article that develops the conceptual grounds for the application of political ecology in the field of urban studies. The authors start by connecting the frameworks of political economy with ecology by demonstrating that matters of environment, nature, and land have been the focus of historical-materialist scholars for a long time, particularly in the field of urbanization: “‘environmental’ issues have been central to urban change and urban politics for at least a century, if not longer.” (Swyngedouw and Heynen, 2003). Then, they connect the economic/ecological process of urbanization to the social/cultural process that accompanies it, asserting that “the environment of the city – both social and physical – is the result of a historical-geographic process of the urbanization of nature” (Swyngedouw and Heynen, 2003). Following this logic of interconnectedness, they explain that “there is no such a thing as an unsustainable city in general” (Swyngedouw and Heynen, 2003). Instead, they affirm, cities are made by interconnected urban and environmental processes that impact some groups negatively while impacting other groups positively. Hence, the aspect of (in)justice is embedded in these multiple power relations. And the power that shapes these processes is spread throughout several scales, through global-local processes and interconnected networks. Once all of these relations are established, the authors reflect on the need for radical geographers to understand the natural metabolisms of cities, to point more accurately to how these physical phenomena are “socially appropriated to produce environments that embody and reflect positions of social power” (Swyngedouw and Heynen, 2003). Reflecting on the “urbanization of nature” the authors discuss the role of ideologies about nature in the urban-making processes, reminding that the modern conception of the separation between human and nature is but an ideology that molds these processes. Reflecting on the “production of urban nature” they move further with the idea that “all kinds of environments are socially produced” and that “human activity cannot be viewed as external to ecosystem function” – an idea suggested by Harvey and used by the authors to reinforce the interconnections of physical and social fabrics in urban spaces. Moving to “uneven geographical development” the authors discuss the matter of justice, explaining the differences and complementarities between Urban Political Ecology (which they define in this paper, as a scholarly framework derived from political economy and ecology – more focused on distribution and with a multi-scale perspective) and Environmental Justice (a perspective that came from social movements into academia – more focused on local issues and other forms of oppression beyond economic, such as gender, race, ethnicity). This article contributes to my project as it explains the process of city-making as one that is not only defined by human-nature relations but also a consequence of social inequalities within human groups.

Tassinari, Wagner De Souza, Débora Da Cruz Payão Pellegrini, Paulo Chagastelles Sabroza, and Marilia Sá Carvalho. “Distribuição Espacial Da Leptospirose No Município do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, ao Longo dos Anos de 1996-1999.” Cadernos de Saúde Pública 20, no. 6 (December 2004): 1721–29. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-311X2004000600031.
This article consists of an epidemic study based on geographic information systems to understand the gravity and causes of the leptospirosis epidemic that afflicted the city of Rio de Janeiro between 1996 and 1999. The maps created by this study demonstrate that the epidemic was initially spread all over the city, due to the flood of 1996, but during the last two years it became concentrated in favela areas in between the neighborhoods of Vargem Grande and Jacarepagua (close to the area where Cidade de Deus is located). The study also tries to understand the causes for this pattern and considers that the permanence of leptospirosis in the area is due to its high social-environmental vulnerability. This contributes to my project, as it demonstrates how the people from this neighborhood kept suffering the impacts of the 1996 flood, years after it happened.