Hydrological resources management diagnosis in the city of Americana (SP), using Geo-technologies

Abstract

The city of Americana (SP), located at Sao Paulo's eastern region, is part of the Campinas' Metropolitan Region (RMC), and has been presenting a strong urbanization process in the last decades, currently achieving a rate of 99.5%. The city's hydrological resources have a great historical and environmental value, as the county was consolidated by the creation of the Paulista Company of Rail and River-way Lines. However, the fast urbanization and industrialization growth damages significantly the hydrological resources, influencing and affecting the hydrological cycle system. Thus, the rivers have been suffering because of all impacts that the anthropic changes do, creating the need of an appropriate planning and ordering, since environment and population integrate a dynamic with interrelated effects. Keeping in mind the city's desire for an adequate management, there is a need for legislation to help in this matter. Nonetheless, Americana doesn't have any specific legislation about water resources, so it is subdued to federal and state laws that may not be sufficient to comply with the local demand. The law needs to be crafted by an integrated management, which is concerned with social, economic, political, and environmental factors. Therefore, a detailed diagnosis about how the hydrological resources management is done in Americana will be done, aiming on verifying whether the existence of a specific law of water resources is really required or the federal and state laws can regulate this resource in order to supply all local needs associated with, for example, the use, distribution, sanitation and preservation. The use of Geo-technologies will be necessary to do this verification, contributing to the precision of data acquisition as well as to understand the territory better, presenting itself as a way to subsidize the analyses, production and integration of information for city's plan and management.