Segurança hídrica e vulnerabilidade socioambiental na cidade de Oiapoque, AP/ Amazônia setentrional - Brasil

Abstract

This thesis sought to investigate the degree of water security and socio-environmental vulnerability of the city of Oiapoque, Northern Amazon, through the correlation of a composite index by dimensions and variables adopted from the (inter)national scientific literature and the city's socioeconomic and environmental context. Despite the conceptual and methodological breadth of water security, from the human perspective, it is a consensus that, among other fundamental elements, it is achieved when there is access to drinking water in sufficient quantity and quality to satisfy basic human needs. For Jepson et al (2017) the impairment of at least one of the variables: availability, accessibility and reliability already denote significant commitment to human well-being that includes but is not just limited to physical and mental health, but the capacity for the development of productive, social and cultural activities. Advances have occurred in the knowledge of the problems involving water resources in the Amazon associated not only with their quality and access but also with their hydroclimatic dynamics, warning of the complexity and particularities inherent to this region, that, many times, have been generalized in the face of territorial planning policies, exogenous and far from the local reality. Water security, from a vulnerability perspective, despite implying challenges in the development of indicators capable of answering questions: How? For whom? And under what circumstances, water security is threatened? It may show good results in specific socioeconomic and environmental contexts associated with the Amazon region. In this way, the area of interest of this research comprises the city of Oiapoque, located in the Northern Amazon, in the extreme north of the state of Amapá. Although this territory has a considerable volume of water, the water supply of the municipality serves only 37.6% of the population, leaving the other inhabitants to resort to surface water and, mainly, groundwater for their domestic supply. This situation seems to get worse in the drier climatic periods (climatic drought) when the population deprived of domestic water supply resorts to groundwater and surface water without adequate treatment for consumption. In view of this, we sought to understand whether, the high dependence on groundwater and/or surface water without adequate treatment for the water supply of the urban population, associated with the scenarios that indicate an intensification of drought events, increases the water vulnerability of the population of the city of Oiapoque. The methodology of this investigation was guided by the composition of a Water Security Index (ISH) as a result of the integration and weighting of different dimensions, indicators, and variables from the components’ exhibition, sensitivity, and adaptability adopted by an extensive literature. The analysis and discussion of the results allow us to conclude that periods of climatic drought have intensified in a city with a high degree of sensitivity, pointing to a situation of vulnerability and (in)security of local water.