ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Drought Causes Water and Power Shortages

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 22 2001 (IPS) - The Brazilian government announced on World Water Day Thursday that it was preparing a “preventive” energy conservation programme to go into effect next month, when the largest city, Sao Paulo, begins rationing water due to an ongoing drought.

The United Nations designated Mar 22 World Water Day in 1992 to underscore the importance of preserving the scarce natural resource, of which many parts of the world already suffer shortages.

Brazil is one of the privileged countries, accounting for 11.6 percent of the world’s surface fresh water. However, 70 percent of the country’s water is in the Amazon jungle, home to just seven percent of the population of 168 million.

Scarcity of rainfall has a double impact in Brazil, affecting both water and power supplies, as 90 percent of the country’s electricity comes from hydropower plants.

The drought affecting west-central, northeast and southeast Brazil since last year is expected to trigger an energy crisis beginning in May, the start of the dry season, which stretches through September.

This is the worst drought in 40 years, said José Mario Abdo, president of the National Agency of Electric Energy, the official regulatory agency.

To avoid the need for rationing, the agency is preparing a preventive plan for the conservation of energy, to go into effect next month, Abdo announced.

While a consciousness-raising campaign urges people to save energy, authorities will negotiate a reduction in demand with industries and other large consumers, and push the generating capacity of thermoelectric and nuclear plants to the limit.

The aim is to use the water from reservoirs in drought-stricken regions, where the water level stands at less than 35 percent of capacity, as little as possible. The goal is to raise the water level by 10 to 13 percent during what is left of the rainy season, which usually ends in late April.

Supplies will be normalised and the risks eliminated as soon as the water level of the reservoirs stands at 49 percent of capacity, which should occur by late April, said Mario Santos, coordinator of the National Operator of the Electric System, a private body that oversees the coordination of several power generating, distributing and transmitting companies.

But the populations of large cities may also have to ration water.

Rationing will be inevitable in the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo, admitted the governor of the state of Sao Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin. Some neighbourhoods will probably begin to experience cuts in supplies starting next month, after a campaign exhorting people not to waste the precious resource, he added.

Per capita water consumption in Sao Paulo amounts to 180 to 200 litres a day, compared to the 120 litres per person which the World Health Organisation says is enough, the governor pointed out.

Nevertheless, the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo has been living with water shortages for years, as the city is home to 17 million people and is located on a plateau where the few sources of water are heavily polluted.

During the driest years, many of Sao Paulo’s residents go without water supplies several days a week.

In the case of Brasilia, Brazil’s capital city, which was planned and inaugurated in 1960 with the aim of developing and settling the country’s interior, was built in a region with even greater scarcity of water, where the humidity level in the atmosphere is often similar to that of the Sahara desert during the winter.

Brazil’s water authorities are taking advantage of the current shortage of water and energy supplies to raise public awareness on the need to conserve water.

The Environment Ministry has put an emphasis on its river basin clean-up campaigns aimed at ensuring the availability of water in the future.

The National Water Agency, created in 1999 to regulate the use of the natural resource and prevent it from being squandered, began to operate last year, and consumers will soon begin to pay for the water they use.

But the country’s sewerage system has serious shortcomings, and only 10 percent of urban waste water is treated, while many rivers are severely polluted.

Plans to privatise the sewerage system, as an answer to insufficient public investment in the sector, have failed to make headway due to a lack of clearly defined jurisdiction by state or municipal governments.

A bill was sent to Congress to clearly delineate the jurisdictional limits of local governments, but it will take a long time to make it through given the heated debates triggered by the question.