Historical views and current perspective of debris flow disaster management in Brazil

In order to analyze the historical views of debris flow disaster management in Brazil, this work searched for technical-scientific studies that treated only debris flows which occurred in Brazil during the period 1900-2014 mainly through a Web-based survey. The searching result shows that most of bibliographies are papers published in proceedings and that papers in scientific journals are only 13% of all the publications. The historical analysis suggests four urgent actions to Brazilian organizations: (1) establishment of correct terminology and concept about debris flow; (2) systematization of hydrometeorological monitoring and topographic survey; (3) occurrence registration and database construction; and (4) woody-debris flow researches. Based on current situation in Brazilian, this work proposes comprehensive measures to reduce risk and disaster associated to debris flow, by constructing and using school catchments which are, here, defined as experimental catchments that are used for real-time monitoring, scientific researches and environmental education for local people.