Water Management in Metropolitan São Paulo

PROCAM-USP, São …, 2005

The most populated and industrialized region of Latin America, the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo host 18 millions people in 39 municipalities. The urban water services are managed in a centralized way by a state firm which provides for a domestic demand of 63 m 3 /s of which 50 % is imported from a neighbouring catchment. Half of the water comes from the periurban catchments of the agglomeration which are submitted to a rapid subnormal urbanization with inadequate sanitation arrangement that directly impact the quality of the water. The tensions are likely to increase with the increasing population and difficulties for the sanitation authorities to keep pace with the urbanization processes. Land management is under the responsibility of the municipalities but a specific land legislation to control urbanization in the catchment defined in the 70's did not permit to control urbanization. The implementation since 1995 of an integrated water management policy has permitted to implement multi-stakeholder platforms for water managemen called catchment commiteet, to better articulate land management and water management, as well as to facilitate the participation of civil society in the process.

2015

The reforms of the water management system in Brazil, especially in the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Area and the Paraiba’s River Valley are analyzed as cases of an institutional transition towards a "hydro-policy", in which are build, sometimes in a controversial way, the conditions for new institutional spheres, changing the relationship between experts and laymen, technicians and users, and the public and private sector.

Urban planning requires the integration of several disciplines, among them ones related to water resources. The impacts of urban development on those resources, and viceversa, are well known, but some aspects have not been well characterized in literature. This research analyzes a case that shows interesting relationships between urban planning, its legislation, the evolution of urban occupation and several aspects of water resources: groundwater, surface water, drainage and saltwater intrusion. The research argues for integrated and dynamic planning, monitoring and directive enforcement of the urban processes, including environmental dimension and water resources. Advanced decision support techniques are suggested as tools for supporting this integrated approach.

International Journal of Water, 2012

This contribution intends to contribute to the analysis of changes in the model of water governance in Belo Horizonte. The first part of the article explores how different theories concerning governance can be interpreted in different ways and, based on this, develops three water governance models: 1 the previous centralised model 2 the traditional normative model 3 the currently implemented model. The second part of the contribution focuses on understanding the changes and inertias that occurred in the city from the perspective of three domains, namely, decentralisation, participation and integration. It is shown that, from an historical institutional viewpoint, policy choices made in the past have acted as constraints over future options (application of path dependency theory). The analysis may contribute to understanding the changes in policies within the water sector. The empirical analysis presented leads to the conclusion that the changes in governance were not sufficient to radically transform the management principles applied in practice.

Considering physical image of water basin for institutional improvement, research has answered seven basic questions formulated on how the image of water basins can be framed in the concept of collective resources. The main aim was to distinguish cities arrangement associated with different environment elements for integrated management. However, method composed has illustrated a simple set of techniques with holistic approach based on symbolic use of four primary elements. In each case the element analyses has adopted spatial patterns of rationalized lines, which were later integrated for a general view to interpret the actual systems. The urban component associated with the natural elements has revealed a hierarchical order of urban nucleus and by understanding gross vector pattern linked with treated Satellite imagery (Landsat-7 UTM RGB-453). Resulting imagery has clearly revealed elementary forms of spatial categories, clusters of the urban structures and intensity of interconnection of subsystems within the basin.

Water Challenges of an Urbanizing World, 2018

This chapter addresses the need for an integrated approach of water management and governance in the urban areas. Water is understood as a natural and social common good, and the relations between different uses and current management practices are analyzed. This approach needs otherwise to influence not only the technical and social spheres but also the policy one. Therefore, a policy effective integration of the comprehensive and interdisciplinary understanding of water problems is advocated and proposed under the concept of integrated urban water policy (IUWP). The final objective is a contribution to an adequate conceptual and operational framework that enables a better and more effective understanding of the multiple dimensions and complexity of integrated management of water uses, in coherent relation with land use planning.

2007

Nilo Nascimento*, Leo Heller*, Bryan Ellis**, Lian Scholes**, Mike Revitt** and Jose Champs*** *Department of Hydraulics & Water Resources Engineering, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Avenue do Contorno 842, 31010-060, Belo Horizonte MG, Brazil. ...

This research aims at reframing sub-regional water basins for adequate system planning. It takes into consideration the physiographic characteristics of a municipal area situated in the coastal Brazilian Atlantic region. Our research observes the landscape elements, investigates land and water lines with their respective zones, as they are conceived and integrated with the urban areas and the rural zone that is associated to the flood plain and the high lands. Four parts of subregional water basins were identified and studied for community water basin management. However, urban equipments associated with the natural and human systems were translated into maps and evaluated together with Satellite imagery (Landsat-7UTM RGB-453) in order to reframe the municipal area into micro water units for strategic planning. Symbolic elements were considered as prime vectors, distinguished to illustrate different environmental patterns involved in the determination of micro water units. This technique has correlated maps for integrated analyses, by drawing attention to the city image associated to environmental resources in the regional and local territories. Such understanding has clearly revealed special patterns that hold the urban pressures and shows how the vectors of expansion forces are connected to the internal and external forms, the types of natural and artificial subsystems and the bio-physiographic conditions. Our analysis has evaluated the local water structural zones for its use in the actual decision making process (DMP), utilizing Urban Focus Chat (UFC), to slot the spatial and systemic approach of the general framework of water units into other environmental values relating to subsystems. Adequate references and ecologic values are vital in planning and in system management required for the development of strategic action.

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 2008

The extension and complexity of large cities creates "urban water" and a related issue: public water services, including public water supply, sewage collection and treatment, and storm water control, had previously become a policy sector separate from water resource allocation issues thanks to water transport and treatment technologies. Large metropolitan areas today cannot take nature for granted anymore, and they need to protect water resources, if only to reduce the long term cost of transporting and treating water. In this paper, we compare the historical development of water services in European and Brazilian metropolitan areas, placing the technological developments in their geographic, socioeconomic and political contexts. Our frame is to follow the successive contributions of civil engineering, sanitary engineering, and environmental engineering: the "quantity of water" and civil engineering paradigm allowed to mobilise water in and out of the city, and up the hills or the floors; in the "water quality" and chemical/sanitary engineering paradigm, water treatment gave more freedom to cities to take water from rivers closer to them, but also to reduce sewer discharge impacts; lastly, the environmental engineering paradigm proposes to overcome the supply side perspective, by introducing demand side management, water conservation, water allocation flexibilisation, and an integrated approach to water services, water resources management, and land use policies.

9th World Wide Workshop for Young …, 2011

Cities have a crucial role in groundwater management. The urban pressure tends to cause great impacts on aquifers. This work is a legal study and aims to verify how Brazilian law about water and urban policies promote better integration of groundwater into urban management processes. The methodology used was a qualitative analysis of environment and urban legislation in São Paulo state, Brazil and urban planning legislation edited by municipalities located in the Guarani aquifer recharge area. The lack of a specific national policy which guides state and local actions is a major problem, especially considering that aquifers trespass the local scale. The state policies most of the time are insufficient and have problems in implementation. Without a regulatory model, local policies rely only on public administration's will which tend to be very susceptible to economic pressure. Despite this, watershed-based management tools starts to bring some guidance to urban director plans.