Some thoughts on water management and initial allocation of water rights in Ceará, Brazil

Abstract

The State of Ceará is located in the Northeast of Brazil, characterized by a semi-arid climate, with a pronounced time and space variability on its rainfall distribution. As recurrent droughts have been plaguing the region, it was created a culture of storing water in reservoirs as much as possible. However it is has been shown that, in spite of the large number of reservoirs built all over the State, a considerable volume of the natural discharges keep on flowing to the ocean. The main reason for that reservoirs low efficiency comes from the high variability of rivers’ inflows. After years practicing a water resources management based only on supply side, Ceará State’s current water policy emphasizes the demand side, including legal water rights, charging, educational campaigns and the decentralized decisions through the users' participation incentive in rivers basins committees. This policy is carried out by Secretariat of Water Resources (SRH), which motivates, analyzes and formalizes the requests of water use rights, and the Company of Water Management of the State (COGERH), which acts as a catalytic agent in the support activities to the users' organization in river basins. This paper shows how Ceará is dealing with the water rights initial allocation - once they never existed in Ceará - and analyses the obstacles and challenges of that new way of managing water in the State.