In April 2010, Niteroi had its worse disaster in the city’s history, with more than 240 deaths in landslides that occurred on a large part of the hills in the city area. The Favela Morro do Bumba was particularly hard hit.

In the summer of 2014, an atypical long drought period increased the occurrence of wildfires that affected around 629.5 hectares, the equivalent of 4.7 percent of the whole city area. Through this fact, the local government established a Program called Niterói Contra Queimadas (Niteroi against Wildfires), which has a series of actions related to prevention and addressing wildfires. This Program is still running and is being successful in reducing the occurrence of fires.

In 2018, the city developed a new risk mapping related to land sliding, classifying the city areas in 5 risk levels (very high, high, medium and light risk). This mapping showed the most vulnerable areas and gave the municipal government an updated scenario that allowed the development of an optimized Resilience Plan, which was launched in December, 2019.

The Niterói Resilience Plan follows the guidelines established by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) to guide public authorities to prepare for possible threats and to reduce conditions of vulnerability.

In line with the Hyogo (2005-2015) and Sendai (2015-2030) Frameworks for Action, the goals of the Plan for a “More Resilient Niterói” are guided by the ten essentials of the Making Cities Resilient Campaign, of which the municipality has been part since 2017. The Plan for a “More Resilient Niteroi” is part of the Niteroi Strategic Plan “the Niteroi We Want” which was developed in 2013 for the upcoming 20 years and involved about 10,000 persons who live or work in the city.

As Niteroi is a municipality with a very lush ecosystem, which has more than 50 percent of its territory composed by areas of environmental preservation, the Resilience Plan seeks in large measure to reduce harmful impacts on the environment. Thus, this plan has as one of its most important goals the conservation and restoration of ecosystems, the strengthening of natural barriers as effective contributors to the reduction of the impacts of extreme weather events due to climate change.

Activities – As from December 2018, Resilience Plan launching

1. INSTITUTIONAL STRENGTHENING OF CIVIL DEFENSE
   • Expand the Civil Defense Secretariat to the Geotechnical area, hiring new multidisciplinary professionals, taking on the new cooperation activity between the two departments.
2. RISK MANAGEMENT
   • Slope stabilization measures at all high / very high priority points – 57 actions in one year – extending later the actions to medium risk priority points.
   • Extend the siren system with appropriate community training
   • Reforestation on slopes - 30.000 trees in two years
   • Purchase of weather radar
3. INSPECTION AND BANNING
   • Intensify banning buildings on protected areas
   • Carry out building demolitions in risk areas – 300 actions in two years
4. HOUSING QUALITY
   • Build Social Properties – 2000 units – from 2017 to 2020
   •  Implement a Social Architect Program – this program promotes housing improvement, since housing precariousness may cause health problems and compromises the safety of the family. These are renovation projects, economically and environmentally friendly, using local labor, prioritizing the use of material available in the community and resources often from Housing Funds or Community Banks.
5. MUNICIPAL POLICY FOR RESILIENCE AND CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION
   • Define the Municipal Policy of Protection and Civil Defense
   • Establish the Municipal Council for Civil Defense and Protection
   • Reach 100 Civil Defense Community Groups skilled as from December 2018 to December 2020 – goal was already reached.
   • Insert Civil Defense Knowledge as a discipline in the school curriculum
   • Develop risk prevention and volunteering mobile apps
   • Celebrate a cooperation agreement with the military fire department

All the planned actions comprise a set of initiatives that, both in an isolated and integrated manner, will promote improvements in all components of the Civil Defense work: prevention, preparation, response and reconstruction.

The strengthening of the Secretariat for Civil Defense and Geotechnics with professionals from different sectoral areas promotes a much greater response capacity to planning, operating and acting in prevention or emergencies, which combined with measures related to the use of technologies, reforestation and more intense participation of community groups of volunteers through the understanding of risk perception and procedures for crisis situations, makes a significant reduction in incidents in the municipality.