Water production and distribution in the São Paulo Metropolitan Region: structural changes resulting from new management and financing strategies

Abstract

This dissertation deals with the standards of urban utilities production and distribution and their outcomes in the shaping of the urban structure as a function of particular investment strategies of the São Paulo Water Utility (Sabesp). This study aims at to confront the water system central functions – e.g. water production, which involves regional scale analysis – with the spatial structure of distribution networks and final consumption points - which involves local scale analysis. The research of the privatization and deregulation practices in countries that originates new models of public utilities financing, of the privatization process in Latin America countries, and of the history of public regulation functions in Brazil, inclusive the present arrangement of regulatory agencies, consist the core themes for the proposed conceptual review.