Groundwater management in Recife: aligning the private and public uses in a perspective of global climate change

Abstract

Management of groundwater is at an incipient stage in Brazil. Limitations are still greater in urban areas, where the location of many wells is not known and the problems, when detected, are related to several activities and users. Legislation on existent water resources does not comprehend the characteristics of groundwater. Thus, as in other metropolitan areas, Recife is inserted in a context of water resources shortage and serious environmental issues. This region contains the greatest well density in the country, with 13 thousand boreholes, most of them being illegal. The non-planed exploitation has brought about an excessive aquifer drawdown besides salinization, which causes the reduction of water safety in the city. In this way, this project aims mainly at the determination of theoretical and technical basis for proposing a groundwater management program, which will take into account the possible scenarios originated from climatic global changes, and by using social communication, including the participation of private users. This proposal is part of the Coqueiral Project (FAPESP Temático Proc. 2011/50553-0), of which I am the coordinator, and its main objective is the understanding of the hydrogeology of the area, as well as the relationships between society, government institutions and water users. The proposed stay in the University of Calgary will allow the analysis of the obtained results and also their integration. A key activity of the stay will be the comparison of the experiences in Canada and Latin America, from which, and along with the analysis and integration of the Coqueiral project results, a program of groundwater management will be proposed. (AU)