This book assesses the performance of Brazil’s water governance and suggests policy recommendations for strengthening the co-ordination between federal and state water policies and for setting up more robust water allocation regimes that can better cope with future risks.

Water is abundant in Brazil, but unevenly distributed across regions and users. Remarkable progress to reform the sector has been achieved since the 1997 National Water Law, but economic, climate and urbanisation trends generate threats that may jeopardize national growth and development. The consequences are particularly acute in regions where tensions across water users already exist or are likely to grow. The report is the result of a policy dialogue with more than 100 stakeholders at different levels in Brazil. It assesses the performance of Brazil's water governance and suggests policy recommendations for strengthening the co-ordination between federal and state water policies and for setting up more robust water allocation regimes that can better cope with future risks. The report concludes with an action plan, which suggests concrete milestones and champion institutions to implement those recommendations.

The complex interactions between water resources, land-use change and water technologies are a major issue in many emerging countries of Southern America. Usable water resources are affected by natural conditions, such as, strong seasonal contrasts and high climatic variability, and rapid changes of land use and land cover that is caused by the dramatic expansion of agricultural land and urbanization processes. So far, the effects of the changing climate have had minor effects on water resources. Although regional data is rather scarce, global climate models predict substantial changes of climatic conditions in the future. A further pressure is that demand for water supply and waste water, both in terms of amount and spatial expansion, is increasing rapidly due to higher population densities caused by natural population growth and migration as well as higher per capita consumption. Integrated Water Resource Management in Brazil aims to present the results of the joint project IWAS-AGUA DF which deals with problems, causes and solutions in water supply in scope of integrated water resource management in western Central Brazil. The basic idea of the IWRM approach to be presented is to show how natural conditions and human interference are interacting and how technologies as well as concepts might help to manage such water resource systems in a sustainable way. Authors: Carsten Lorz, Hochschule Weihenstephan-Triesdorf, University of Applied Sciences, Germany, Franz Makeschin, Dresden University of Technology, Germany and Holger Weiss, Center for Environmental Research, Germany

How do institutional arrangements established by law become operational in practice? It takes work for them to develop problem-solving capabilities and win recognition from others-what the authors call "practical authority." Drawing from a decade-long, multi-site study of efforts to transform freshwater management in Brazil, the authors show how an assortment of protagonists-from state officials to university professors to activists-struggled to breathe life into new institutional designs. Their account weaves together three decades of national and state law-making with experimentation in establishing new kinds of participatory water management organizations. Exploring this process in sixteen river basins, the authors examine why some of those organizations adapted creatively to challenges while others never got off the ground. To approach this complex, volatile, and non-linear process of transformation, the book develops a framework for investigating the actions and practices of institution-building.

This book is a product of Brazilian Academy of Sciences Study Group about water issue. The water cycle was addressed based on an integrated point of view, aiming at joining technological and ecological solutions and integrating quantitative and qualitative aspects of this important environmental asset. Issues such as the water resources management and irrigated agriculture, water and health, water and economy, conservation and reuse as management tools, water in the Brazilian semi arid, water in Amazon, urbanization and water resources, education for the sustainability of water resources, groundwater, availability, pollution and eutrophication of water and science, technology and innovation are of the utmost importance for this exact moment in Brazil, and particularly to the State of Sao Paulo. Addressing these issues will undoubtedly contribute towards a sustainable management of water resources trough the coordinated work of different fields of science, progressing a systemic view about water, that would then finally allow management professionals the possibility of an integral action in anticipating problems and thus anticipate solutions.

Water Conservation and Wastewater Treatment in BRICS Nations: Technologies, Challenges, Strategies, and Policies addresses issues of water resources—including combined sewer system overflows—assessing effects on water quality standards and protecting surface and sub-surface potable water from the intrusion of saline water due to sea level rise. The book's chapters incorporate both policies and practical aspects and serve as baseline information for future adaption plans in BRICS nations. Users will find detailed important information that is ideal for policymakers, water management specialists, BRICS nation undergraduate or university students, teachers and researchers. - Presents tools and techniques that can be used to preserve water resources, including groundwater and surface water - Provides geophysical methods to quantitatively monitor physical earth processes associated with water resources, such as contaminant transport and ecological and climate change investigations and monitoring - Includes desalination techniques which can solve the issue of scarce drinking water