Conflitos e gestão de águas: o caso da bacia hidrográfica do rio São Francisco

Abstract

The management of water resources in Brazil is supported by a legal structure considered a triumph for society because it outlines a management model that establishes an institutional arrangement based on new types of organization for the shared management of water use. Based on principles that promote integrated, decentralized and participative management, the current model transfers many decisions to the local sphere of the river basin, a territorial planning and management unit, and the implementation of this principle gives rise to conflicts among the agents that comprise the National Water Resources Management System (SINGREH). The Basin Committee is the proper local agency for deciding about how water should be managed, but the exercise of this practice has revealed obstacles that presuppose a permanent process of negotiation and cooperation. In this sense, the workings of the São Francisco River Basin Committee are a challenge for the country due to the dimension and complexity of this hydrographic basin, which is the object of various kinds of conflicts, including the difficulty to establish a negotiated allocation of its waters. In the case of some of the country’s drainage basins, the decision to establish Water Management Accords was indicated as a strategy to render viable a mechanism able to overcome obstacles in relationships among the System’s agents and in basin management, presenting effective results. Thus, the Committee should play the role of articulator of strategies of this nature. The present dissertation aims to analyze the diverse conflicts in the São Francisco River Basin and the possible construction of accords as a strategy to overcome the obstacles identified. To this end, I adopted an analytical approach to address the conflicts, their elements, typologies and forms of treatment, as well as the aspects that involve conflicts in the management of the country’s water resources. This approach contextualized water resources management and the current state-of-the-art of implementation of the SINGREH and the respective instruments of management in the country. In addition, based on national experiences, I sought to identify the main elements of the construction of water management accords, characterize the São Francisco River basin, and identify the perception of the main actors involved in the conflicts concerning the drainage basin and the ascertain the possibility of establishing a management agreement for the São Francisco basin. The methodology used here was based on primary and secondary data. The activities of the Committee were examined and interviews were held, seeking to identify the understanding of the actors regarding the theme. A bibliographic and documental review was also made. Lastly, a series of conflicts were identified in the management of the waters of the São Francisco basin, including the negotiated allocation of the water. Given the current conjuncture of decline in the implementation of the Policy and the National Water Resources Management System in the country, and considering the various obstacles plaguing the management of the basin, it was concluded that the São Francisco Committee is too politically and institutionally weakened to carry out the various necessary negotiations. Furthermore, at the present time the Committee does not have the conditions required to establish a drainage basin accord whose main objective would be the negotiated allocation of waters, which could represent a solution for part of the conflicts currently identified.