Gestão das águas do projeto de integração do Rio São Francisco na Paraíba à luz da Política Nacional dos Recursos Hídricos

Abstract

Throughout history, the lack of access to water in Brazil’s Northeast region has been addressed primarily as a hydrological problem, rather than because of an unequal development process. Decision-making by public authorities has been – and continues to be – based exclusively on water scarcity in the region as a factor intrinsically associated with low rainfall levels. Within this context, the largest water infrastructure project in the country was implemented: the São Francisco River Integration Project for the Northeastern Hydrographic Basins (PISF), encompassing four states – Paraiba, Pernambuco, Ceará, and Rio Grande do Norte. Considering that one of the main current challenges is the management of this water project, the primary objective of this research is to analyze how the governance of the PISF is being planned and implemented in the state of Paraíba. To this end, the study adopts a qualitative approach, conducting semi-structured interviews with state-level institutional managers, in addition to observation and document collection as the main data collection techniques. Discourse analysis will be employed as an analytical method. Therefore, this research aims to contribute a critical analysis of how decisions surrounding the PISF have been carried out in Paraíba, as it is one of the recipient states of the project’s transferred waters.