GEO Brasil - UNEP

the state of urban and industrial areas
the state of the environment in Brazil
With regard to sewage (Map 9), it is indicated that only 31 percent of the Brazilian
population is served, and only 8 percent of that sewage is properly treated The
sewage situation is one of the greatest challenges to governmental public policies,
considering its implications on the population and the environment It is important
to notice that the investments made in order to reach 911 percent of the houses
with water supply implied, on the other hand, in the same quantity of sewage
effluent In 1999, 525 percent of urban houses used the sewage general system;
Map 5 - Expansion of tourism / Typology of touristic municipalities
Industrial companies
1996
231 percent used septic pits; 121
percent primitive pits; and 61 percent
used ditches or directed their sewage
straight to water bodies (rivers, seas,
lakes, etc) The Southeast Region has
the highest percentage of urban
houses connected to the general
system (788 percent), and the North
Region has the lowest (82 percent)
In metropolitan regions, the service
levels do not follow the relations found
in the North and Southeast regions
(Brazilian Institute of Geography and
Statistics – IBGE 2001)
The service pattern through the
general system changes in the
Metropolitan Region of Porto Alegre
(State of Rio Grande do Sul), which
has the lowest percentage of houses
connected to the general system (49
percent), well under the Metropolitan
Region of Belém (77 percent)
However, the information on Porto
Alegre does not necessarily represent
a negative situation, because is
reflects a policy of incentive to the
dissemination of the use of septic pits,
considering that the sewage directed
to collection networks without any
treatment is potentially more
hazardous to the environment, which
is proved by the health indicators and
the quality of life in the Porto Alegre
Metropolitan Region, that are well
above the Brazilian average (IBGE
2001)
Sources: IBGE - National Atlas of Brazil- 2000
People in travel agencies
5to249
250 to 999
1,000 to 4,999
5,000 to 13,052
Main touristic functions
Diversified
Beaches (sea, lake, river)
Mountains
Hydromineral station
Historic-cultural
Rural ecotourism
Religious
The domestic sewage is the source of
the three most serious problems of
water pollution in Brazil: faecal
coliforms, organic pollution (BOD)
and phosphorus Despite of the fact
that the coliform and BOD production
is, roughly speaking, constant per
person, the house production of
phosphorus is significantly different
between the rural and urban areas,
because of the intensive use of
phosphorous detergents in the latest
The faecal coliforms and other
pathogens in the sewage are the main
source of mortality and morbidity,
specially of children To reduce the
primary threaten to human health, the
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