Summer is here, with temperatures soaring. This week alone – the hottest season of the year began last Sunday – the maximum temperature reached 40ºC twice: Tuesday and this Thursday, Christmas Day, where, according to Alerta Rio, 40.1ºC was recorded at the Guaratiba measuring station, in the western area of the city. And this is just the beginning.
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— The state of Rio will be marked by very high temperatures this summer. There will even be milder periods, due to the formation of zones of instability and corridors of humidity, but, in general, people will experience very hot days, with a lot of heat — explains César Soares, meteorologist at Climatempo.
When faced with this scenario, the basic guideline is to drink water. For those who need to be outside in the heat, one alternative is to use public hydration points spread across the capital and other parts of the state. There are 240 maintained by the town hall and 27 by the state government – they are marked with a sign reading: “Public hydration point. Drink water, protect your health.”
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Hydration centers are found in Family Clinics and Urgent Care Units (UPAs), where the public can enter, use the water fountain, sit and enjoy the air conditioning, for their relief and thermal comfort. At the beginning of the month, O GLOBO visited seven of these points, in Bangu and Realengo, in the West Zone; in Madureira, North zone; and in Botafogo, South Zone. In each of them, well-conditioned environments were found, with a supply of natural, cold water and seats and toilets available to people.
In state-administered PDUs, the water fountain is installed outside. Anyone wishing to drink water must go to reception and ask for a disposable cup. In Bangu, GLOBO met entrepreneur Júlia de Oliveira, 36, who takes the time to hydrate:
— Bangu is too hot. Sometimes the temperature here exceeds 43ºC. On days of extreme heat, it is practically impossible to walk on the street. We don’t even have a real winter. So I think having a place to hydrate is a basic need for residents. If a person doesn’t have access to water, they get sick. It is very common here in the neighborhood to find water sellers at traffic lights in different places. And it’s not expensive water, no. It’s R$2, because people buy a lot.
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At the Antônio Gonçalves da Silva Family Clinic, in Realengo, a group of children gathered around the fountain in search of refreshment.
— I come periodically because of my baby. And there is always someone from outside who comes to use the water fountain. The children leave school and on the way home they stop and drink water because the sun is shining. Here, it’s free. If you want to come in, sit down and drink water, you can — said Raquel Gonçalves, 22, self-employed.
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At the Botafogo UPA, one of the two water fountain taps was defective and blocked with adhesive tape. When contacted, the state Department of Health said it had replaced the equipment.
— I went in, I was able to use the bathroom, get some fresh air and cold water. It’s cool inside,” described street vendor Maria Gomes, 64, who works around the unit.
Other places visited by GLOBO were the Rosino Baccarini family clinics, in Bangu, and Souza Marques, in Madureira, and the UPA in Realengo.
Rio City Hall indicated that the 240 primary care units are able to care for people with symptoms caused by heat stress and who need hydration, whether intravenously (serum directly into the vein) or orally, with hydration salts, as clinically indicated. And the most common cases during periods of extreme heat are malaise and high blood pressure. The municipality also indicated that, as provided for in the Extreme Heat Protocol, if the city reaches heat level (CL) 4, health facilities will adjust workflows to increase their service capacity. NC4 is reached when the city records temperatures between 40 and 44 degrees for at least three consecutive days.
Cedae, in turn, indicates in a press release that it implements actions to guarantee the hydration and thermal comfort of the population during periods of intense heat, such as the installation of drinking water distribution tents in high traffic points: “These initiatives are planned according to the heat levels defined by meteorological institutes, which allows the company to develop and strengthen actions as needed.”
Click here for the full list of public hydration points from Rio City Hall, and this link to see those from the state government.
On another front, there is the National Climate Shelter Program, which aims to ensure the population is protected during extreme weather events, such as heat waves, intense rains and droughts. The law (10,960/2025) that establishes the project, sanctioned by the state government in September, determines that public spaces – including schools, libraries, museums and cultural facilities – and accredited private places can serve as shelters, provided they meet minimum infrastructure requirements. Locations must provide ventilation, air conditioning, drinking water, sanitation, rest areas and accessibility for people with disabilities and reduced mobility.
Written by MP Yuri Moura (PSOL), the law stipulates that spaces must be installed in regions with high traffic and more vulnerable to extreme weather events.
— The idea is that a refuge can address at least one of the four problems that concern us in a climate change scenario: flooding, landslides, heat and cold. With the Rio Legislative Assembly (Alerj) safe from all these problems, discussions are underway for the Chamber to become the state’s first climate refuge, perhaps as soon as January. We are discussing with the presidency the structure of the house, the internal procedures to access the building for this purpose, the place which will accommodate the people and the necessary adaptations to the infrastructure, revealed the parliamentarian.
The MP says he will meet with the state government to define strategies so that people know where to turn in emergency contexts. One of them is to register shelters on Google Maps, indicating their destination.
— The proposal for climate refuges arose from a trip I made to Catalonia (Spain) in January. Many years ago, they created thermal emergency points in urban areas. When I returned to Brazil, I started debating with experts from the UERJ about the possibility of adapting this to Brazil, going beyond the issue of heat, especially because I have experience in civil defense, I did a postgraduate degree in the field and I experienced tragedies in Petrópolis, where I was a city councilor — he says.
The law defines that the State of Rio will be responsible for the accreditation and adaptation of public spaces to transform them into climate refuges, a process that must include the carrying out of a technical assessment by the competent bodies. The government must also sign and identify in a clear and visible manner all public and private facilities that function as climate shelters, using specific symbols and signs indicating their function, in order to facilitate access to them by the population in the event of an emergency.
To the question of whether there is already a timetable for the solution to be put into practice, the state government only responds that “it is evaluating the best way to implement the initiative” and that, to do this, it is “studying the definition of attributions and criteria so that the measure can be implemented”.
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