GEO Brasil - UNEP

the state of water resources
the state of environment in Brazil
Basins was recently launched by the National Waters Agency
– ANA (Agência Nacional de Águas) in order to stimulate
the implementation of tributaries treatment systems and
the increase of existing efficiency Other initiatives have
also been taken in order to improve water quality by means
of a direct financial return to the service provider in view of
both the quantity of water treated and the quality of the
final product This is an innovation action bound to be
successful
12 Urban - Industrial Supply - Contamination
by Tributary
In 1940 the Brazilian population comprised 40M inhabitants
of which 12,8 million lived in urban centres while the majority
of the population lived in rural areas By the beginning of
this century, the Brazilian population had increased fourfold
and the relationship had changed completely: today over
80 percent of the Brazilian population live in cities
The evolution analysis of sanitation services supply levels
in Brazil reveal that substantial improvement has occurred
only in water supply services primarily provided to the urban
population In numerical terms, during the period between
1970 and 2000, the urban population increased 137 percent,
going from 52 milion to around 123 milion In a similar way,
the number of households served with water distribution
networks increased from 60 to 91 percent Around 11 milion
people who live in cities do not have access to water through
the network In the rural area, 9 percent of the population is
somehow connected to the drinking water network It is
worth mentioning, though, that the larger part of this
population is supplied directly by wells and springs
and the poor regions concentrate the population most in
need of sanitation services According to the Ministry of
Health, 65 percent of hospitalisations result from inadequate
sanitation services and actions, dysentery is responsible,
for 50 thousand infant deaths per year, the majority under
one year of age
The institutional model based on State Sanitation
Companies, resulting from the National Sanitation Plan –
PLANASA (Plano Nacional de Saneamento), created in 1971
and discontinued in 1986, was definitely capable of
changing the supplying index before the 1960s However,
excessive centralisation in the companies, which
conditioned fund raising to the municipality adhesion to
the system, was responsible for the creation of bureaucratic
structures dettached from the reality and incapable of
operating either physical or financial solutions Greater
challenges have been faced by the few existing municipal
services which, in the absence of funding sources, establish
compulsory mechanisms, instruments and innovating
solutions which guarantee, within small operational
structures, certain financial health Chart 2 gives an overall
view of services supply throughout the Brazilian regions by
indicating the main suppliers and the population being
served
According to the Ministry of Planning and Budget and the
Urban Policy Secretariat’s data (MPO / MPSS (Ministério
do Planejamento e Orçamento / Secretaria de Política
Urbana) and according to diagnosis from the Sanitation
Sector: Financial and Economic Studies, Brasília, 1995, in
order to reach the water and sewage services universalisation
target for the entire Brazilian population, investments of
approximately US$42 billion within a period of around 20
years would be necessary
On the other hand, the supply of sewage collection and
disposal services is still rather inadequate even in large cities
and reaches 15 percent of its intended coverage only When
sewage treatment systems are included in this analysis the
coverage index drops to 8 percent only Considering basic
sanitation in a broader sense, it can be noticed that the
deficiencies caused by a chronic absence of collecting
systems and adequate destination of final solid residues
help to form the picture that is largely responsible, in great
part, for the public health problems that affect mainly the
low income population
The large cities suburbs, the small urban agglomerations
In 1995, the National Information System on Sanitation
was institutionalised It represents a fundamental
instrument for the efficiency of sanitation services supply
and it is indispensable to the implementation of the sector’s
regulatory framework The referred system is anchored in
the implementation of an environmental sanitation data
bank and in the use of performance indicators
One aspect worth noticing regarding the sector’s
organisation is the insufficient link with programmes and
activities in other areas, especially those related to the
environment and water resource management There is a
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