A gestão integrada dos recursos hídricos: uma perspectiva histórica

Abstract

The article presents an historical retrospective on the water regulation starting the Hammurabi Code in Mesopotamia (1772 B.C.) to the Brazilian Water Law in 1997. Charging water use in situations where there was a hydraulic distribution infrastructure was already practiced for millennia. The perception of water as a free-access good was found in ancient Rome in the second century BC. At that time the Romans created an advanced system for water management to meeting the Rome´s demand. Starting in the Renaissance, the humanity passes by major advances in knowledge creation and Engineering techniques development. The advances in Hydraulics Engineering provided significant increases in the availability and supply of water to the cities and irrigation projects. The industrial revolution and the growth of polluting activities have resulted in degradation of water quality of water sources. From the early 1960's has an awakening world in search of a new model of water management which is now called the Integrated Water Management of Water Resources. In the field of institutions changes were called water reform. The reform came to Brazil in the early 1980s. In the late '80s opened in the states of São Paulo and Ceará Water Reform. In the Federal sphere reforms initiated in 1997 with the Act. 9433. The IWRM paradigm was adopted in Brazilians laws.