Bacia hidrográfica urbanizada e degradação ambiental : o vale do rio Jaguaribe - João Pessoa (PB)

Abstract

Intending to be provided with a living, human beings have simultaneously produced not only their history, knowledge, political and social structure, but also the space where they live. On building up their space, individuals have caused serious alterations in nature, which can be noticed throughout the history of human settlements. The new points about them are the intensity of the environment degradation processes, the difficulty to restore the ecosystems within the urban fabric and the compromising degree of the population s quality of life. In this context and in a singular way, there outstand the valleys of urban rivers that even counting upon a specific legislation normalising their occupation have been changed into degraded and segregated places in cities. The urban expansion of João Pessoa (PB) has not produced a different scenario, so resulting in a fast process of degradation of the hydrographical basin of the Jaguaribe River. This study served to show the changes that have occurred in the city area as from 1944, when in an established cut of the high valley the river is seen as gradually separated from the daily routine of the local population, and the absence of political policies envisaging the solution for the social and environmental degradation reality. Today s glance at it somewhat differs from the context, sometimes even being seen like an obstacle as regards the city expansion. Finally, an area fully inserted in the urban mesh, which could have been potentially used as a developing and disciplining vector to such space, has actually concentrated a number of social and environmental problems, resulting from the way the growth ecologically predatory and socially unjust designed them