Gestão da água, gestão da seca: a centralidade do açude no gerenciamento dos recursos hídricos do semiárido

Abstract

The Brazilian semiarid region has undergone recurrent periods of drought throughout its history, which promote diverse effects on the population and economic activities in the region. In order to solve or at least alleviate the problems caused by the drought in the semiarid region, the State implemented several policies to deal with such phenomenon, which have certain characteristics according to the historical moment. Among the main policies developed by the State aiming to mitigate the damaging effects of droughts for the region, it is worth highlighting the dams due to their presence in most of the history of the semiarid region and the fact that it has been carried out throughout the region. Those reservoirs are so important to the semiarid region that they have played a fundamental role in the management of the region’s water resources, due to its storage and distribution properties of water articulated to other water policies that exist in this space. Therefore, this work aims to understand the characteristics of water management in the semiarid region, focusing on the analysis of dams in the region and the repercussions that this process promotes for the hydrological dynamics and for the social organization of the semiarid region. The following procedures were adopted: information collection in the literature, in public documents and in Brazilian legislation; acquisition and treatment of hydrological data (precipitation and discharge); hydrological modeling; field visit; collecting and analyzing data on the variation of the dam volume. It was possible to identify that state intervention in the semiarid region follows a tendency oriented through the characteristics of each historical moment and the interests of the groups that make up the state sector. It was also observed that the existence of dams promotes significant changes in the behavior of surface runoff in the semiarid region. These changes present different intensities depending on the hydrological characteristics of each period (set of years), i.e., dry, normal or rainy. Finally, the centrality exercised by the dam for water management in the semiarid region was identified, due to its water storage and distribution properties and its articulation with other water policies. It was verified that the management of the water resources in the region is influenced by the occurrence of dry and rainy periods due to the influence that these periods cause in the volume variation of the dams in semiarid regions, causing difficulties for the water management and damages to the demands of existing uses. Keeping the water of the dam in continuous condition to meet the diverse demands that exist is fundamental for an efficient management of water resources in the semiarid region.