The Brazilian surface freshwater framework in union-dominated rivers: challenges and prospects for water quality management (original) (raw)
Related papers
Water Policy, 2021
Water management is assuming more and more importance as freshwater resources are becoming scarce, both in quality and in quantity, across many developed and developing countries. This trend can be attributed to population growth, industrialization, growing agricultural demand, poor water management practices and climate change. In attempting to deal with the intensification of water quality- and quantity-related problems in recent decades, many countries have revised their water resource management policies and legislation, introducing new institutional frameworks and management instruments. Considering regional geographic and cultural distinctions, the present article aims at comparing the models of water resource management in the European Union (EU) and in Brazil. Institutional and legal arrangements currently in place, water planning and management instruments currently in use, assessments of water body status and watershed diagnoses were analysed. Main strengths and weaknesses...
Water Management: Constraints to and Contributions of Brazilian Watershed Management COMMITTEES1
Ambiente & Sociedade, 2019
This study discusses the main contributions and limitations to the performance of Brazilian Watershed Management Committees. Two integrative reviews of the literature were conducted that revealed that most of these committees are failing to contribute effectively to the purposes for which they were created. This is mainly due to: lack of support from the state; the non-implementation of management instruments and the low participation of municipal and state public authorities and of civil society in these spaces. The committees have made contributions in environmental education and by allowing greater social participation in decisions about water management.
Decision-making Policies for the Salgado River Basin, Ceará – Brazil
Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Analytic Hierarchy Process, 2014
The parliament water of "Salgado" river, an event that guided the actions and recommendations for the future of the waters of the "Salgado" River, south of the Brazilian state of Ceará, was obtained through a democratic process, with 100 public, private and the third sector institutions. We have intended to define a model of development compatible with the aspirations of society as regards to the priority use and the water quality standard we want to achieve, and what the necessary actions and strategies for multi-criteria analysis of the instrument national water policy, the Framework water. The main goal of the analysis is to decide what is the appropriate policy to meet the purposes of the Parliament of the Waters of the "Salgado" River. So we have used the Analytic Hierarchy Process method (AHP): the criteria was analyzed economic, socioeconomic , social, environmental and environmental; alternatives were defined essentially preservationist policies, sustainable policies and essentially economic policies. Preliminary results indicate that the application of AHP method was effective in decision made.
Water resources management: suggestions to the Brazilian model based on the American experience
Water Resources Management VI, 2011
Continuous population growth, increasing industrialization and expanding irrigated agriculture are all placing a strain on scarce water supplies, including serious depletion of aquifers. To address this reality, in Brazil Law 9433, enacted in 1997, established the National Water Resources Policy and created the National Water Resource Management System, introducing a new integrated approach to environmental management policies through the application of economic-based instruments. This law defined the hydrographic basin as the unit of planning, considering multiple water uses, and introduced many changes at the institutional and policy instruments levels. However, nearly fourteen years after the enactment of this law, instead of integrated management and planning as originally envisioned, in many respects Brazil has returned to a strictly command and control approach. Evidence of this trend is the process of revising the rules on water quality standards and pollutant discharge limits by the federal environmental agency (CONAMA Resolution 357/2005). This process resulted in CONAMA Resolution 396/2008, which despite many criticisms maintained fixed limits for pollutant discharges, thus making no distinction between these discharges according to the related polluting activity or technology, or the carrying capacity of the natural water body. The wisest course would have been to base the revision on the international water management experience. This article aims to contribute to this effort, by analyzing the case of the United States, which can provide valuable insight in terms of defining water quality standards and effluent discharge limits based on control technologies and industrial typologies.
River Basin Management And The National Water Resources Policy In Brazil
1970
In 1997, Brazil enacted Law NO. 9,433 on Water Resources Management, based on the following principles: water is an asset within the public domain; water is a limited natural resource with economic value; in case of shortages, the primary use of water is for human consumption and drinking water for livestock; its management should foster multiple water use; the river basin is the selected planning unit; water management should be decentralized and cooperative. Until this law came into effect, environmental management in Brazil was based on an institutional and legal structure that assigned high priority to centralized activity by Government agencies, particularly at the Federal and State level, through conventional regulatory control tools. l Main Brazilian river basin Covering 8,547,403 square kilometers, Brazil has eight major river basins, defined by their catchment areas and physical characteristics : Amazon Basin covers a catchment area of six million square kilometers (some 3....
WATERS OF METROPOLITAN AREA OF SÃO PAULO: TECHNICAL, CONCEPTUAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS
SUSTAINABLE WATER MANAGEMENT IN THE TROPICS AND SUBTROPICS AND CASE STUDIES IN BRAZIL - CHAPTER 53, ISBN 978-85-63337-23-8, 2012
ABSTRACT: Brazil is known for it´s enormous potential of freshwater. Despite Brazil’s apparent abundance of fresh water - 12% of the world’s fresh water - these supplies are not evenly distributed across the country. Besides, overuse and pollution threaten Brazil’s freshwater resources, particularly in the heavily-populated coastal regions. This consideration is particularly true for São Paulo metropolitan area (RMSP), the foremost urban agglomeration in the Brazilian spatial formation. In Greater São Paulo (GSP), untreated effluents from industrial park and sawage are dumped into the Tietê River basin as it flows through the metropolitan area. Plus: water resources are wasted every day and therefore, the ghost of dry taps is a real menace. The intention of this paper, centered at geography discipline, is explore this problematic, considering technical, social and environmental aspects of this issue. WATERS OF METROPOLITAN AREA OF SÃO PAULO: Technical, conceptual and environmental aspects Chapter 53, pp. 1282-1315 of SUSTAINABLE WATER MANAGEMENT IN THE TROPICS AND SUBTROPICS AND CASE STUDIES IN BRAZIL, VOL. 4 In: Carolina Bilibio, Oliver Hernsel e Jeferson Francisco Selbach (Org.) Fundação da Universidade Federal do Pampa e Kassel Universität (República Federal da Alemanha), 1ª ed. 2012, ISBN 978-85-63337-23-8
The Brazilian Water Resources Management Policy:Fifteen Years of Success and Challenges
As a result of the increasing global awareness about the importance of water, many developed and developing countries have reviewed their water resources management policies and laws. In Brazil, Law 9,433, enacted in (1997), establishes the National Water Resources Policy (NWRP) and the National Water Resource Management System (NWRMS), introducing a new integrated approach to water resources management through the application of planning and economic instruments. At the institutional level, this brought many changes. A new institutional framework was established with the creation of river basin committees and water agencies. Almost 15 years after the Law took effect, these changes are still being implemented, and some adjustments have been necessary. In light of the Brazilian NWRP, this paper presents and analyzes the legal and institutional reform that has been taking place in Brazil’s water resources sector since 1997. An initial analysis shows that today, the implementation process still faces many challenges, hindering the effective consolidation of the instruments set out by Law 9,433/1997. The paper concludes that although Brazil’s model is generally in line with international trends, and despite the major progress that has been made to date, in some hydrographic regions the instruments conceived in the country’s model are still in the incipient stage of implementation, indicating that greater efforts are necessary, some of which are suggested in this article.
Ambiente & Sociedade, 2020
The article proposes a set of requirements to be used in assessing the potential of the River Basin Management Plans as instruments: (i) of (vertical) articulation between river basin planning and national and state planning of water resources; (ii) of articulation (horizontal) between water resources planning and other sectorial planning; (iii) of integration between water resources planning and regional and municipal strategies for land use planning and environmental sanitation; (iv) of water safety. These requirements were applied to the Alto-Tietê River Basin Management Plan, which demonstrated low potential for horizontal articulation and water safety planning. To overcome these limitations, it is suggested, in the next plan revisions, the use of planning tools that promote the involvement of society in a complementary way to the discussions in the river basin committee, fostering shared decision-making between the different actors and user sectors.
Ecological Questions, 2008
The Water Code, created in 1934, was the first attempt of governmental intervention in Water Basin Management in Brazil. It was a centralized bureaucratic system established to regulate the use of water. Since the beginning, Water Management suffered significant changes and the model currently used is an integrated participative systemic model. The distribution of water resources in Brazil is very irregular, 70% of water is located in the North region, 15% to the Central-West, 12% in the South and Southeast and 3% in the Northeast region (BNDES 1997). The state of São Paulo is located in the Southeast region, which has the biggest water consumption. The Water Resources Agency of São Paulo State (CETESB) has an advanced water management system with 20 Watershed Management Committees. Groups from different social sectors compose these committees. They constitute a new kind of organization that is responsible for the watershed planning. Actually, these committees use to obtain relevant information but they are not able to develop future scenarios, objectives, strategies and temporary goals for the water basin. The Mogi-Guaçu watershed is the most important basin in São Paulo State from the economic point of view, but the river has problems of erosion, silting, flooding and low water quality. The water quality problems are due to nonpoint sources of pollution from agriculture and municipal and industrial point sources.