Extreme events and flood impacts

Impacts on ecosystems & people

The causes of the May 2024 floods in southern Brazil and who was affected.

In May 2024, southern Brazil experienced a devastating flood caused by a rare combination of atmospheric conditions: a heatwave stalled a cold front, leading to prolonged and intense rainfall. Combining reanalysis, SWOT and Sentinel-2 observations, topography, and socioeconomic data, we estimated a floodwater volume of about 1.5 billion m³ and found that roughly 420,000 people in the study region were directly affected, about 16% of them socially vulnerable.

The work was featured in Oceanus Magazine.