River Basin Management Plans and Their Challenges: The Case of the Alto-Tietê River Basin - State of São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

The article proposes a set of requirements to be used in assessing the potential of the River Basin Management Plans as instruments: (i) of (vertical) articulation between river basin planning and national and state planning of water resources; (ii) of articulation (horizontal) between water resources planning and other sectorial planning; (iii) of integration between water resources planning and regional and municipal strategies for land use planning and environmental sanitation; (iv) of water safety. These requirements were applied to the Alto-Tietê River Basin Management Plan, which demonstrated low potential for horizontal articulation and water safety planning. To overcome these limitations, it is suggested, in the next plan revisions, the use of planning tools that promote the involvement of society in a complementary way to the discussions in the river basin committee, fostering shared decision-making between the different actors and user sectors.

Improving water governance in Brazil: an organisational memory approach

“…In particular, the analyses indicate that the river basin plans prepared by the committees do not always facilitate horizontal articulation and water security planning, which could be tackled by the expansion of society's engagement in the shared decision-making process (SANTOS et al, 2020). There is a lack of support from the state government, appropriate management tools are scarce, and participation of municipal and state public authorities and civil society has been low in the committees (TRINDADE; SCHEIBE, 2019).…”