This is a preliminary reflection on water in Brazil, a country that, in principle, has enough for its needs and then some.\u00a0 The problem is in the distribution and management of water, and in the infrastructure that should carry it to the Brazilian population.\u00a0 Later versions of this post will have more research and photos, but this preliminary reflection is a rough overview of Brazil\u2019s water situation as we have seen it over the last few months. Some of these photos have appeared in earlier posts about life in the interior. What I show here is what I have experienced and photographed in Brazil \u2014 mostly in the northeast state of Maranh\u00e3o, which is among the poorest and least developed in Brazil.\u00a0 My own subjective experience is augmented by reportage from S\u00e3o Paulo and Maranh\u00e3o newspapers and weekly journals. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some Larger Issues: Water in the Amazon and the Interior<\/strong><\/p>\n The world is familiar with issues of conservation of the forests and aquifers in the Amazon region of Brazil.\u00a0 The area is being deforested at an astonishing rate by miners, lumber companies, farming businesses, and others.\u00a0 Farming of the lucrative cattle and grain products (e.g., soy beans) is creating more food and less water.<\/p>\n Directly or indirectly, forest and water in this region is especially threatened by the world\u2019s demand for meat \u2014 either as cattle raised here or the grain used (and massively exported) to feed cattle elsewhere.\u00a0 Some sources say that soy would be nine times more efficient as a source of protein if used directly, rather than being used as cattle feed to produce meat.\u00a0 Much of the cattle ranching in Brazil is based on free range and thus needs space \u2014 this is perhaps the biggest threat to Brazil\u2019s forests and water.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Water in S\u00e3o Paulo, and the Missing 20,000 Water Tanks<\/strong><\/p>\n S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s reservoirs are threatened by a long, dry season.\u00a0 Their replenishment is a matter of nature providing enough rain in the wet season.\u00a0 But these problems are to some extent predictable and the infrastructure to manage a shortage has not yet been built.<\/p>\n Again, a major problem is in the distribution system.\u00a0 In S\u00e3o Paulo there are eight major systems.\u00a0 They are only partly connected and metro-wide \u201cintegration\u201d of the water infrastructure is an engineer\u2019s dream and a very problematic political task.<\/p>\n Brazil is currently plagued with a declining economy and is hobbled at the national level by corruption and feuding over ethics investigations, the jailing of leading political figures, and the possible impeachment of others.\u00a0 In S\u00e3o Paulo the political situation is seems less contentious, but the water infrastructure demands a huge investment that is not readily accomplished in times of economic stress.<\/p>\n As an example, the northern zone of greater S\u00e3o Paulo is somewhat distant from the central commercial district and it houses a millions of people with modest incomes and standard of living.\u00a0 This region is fed by the Cantareira water reserve, which has fallen to as low as 15% of capacity and has only recovered a few percent since the rains of the summer (i.e., the months that are winter in the Northern hemisphere).<\/p>\n Cantareira dropped to a \u201cdead volume\u201d \u2014 the level at which water does not freely flow out of the reservoir but must be pumped.\u00a0 This depletes the volume further until, in theory, they reach the mud at the\u00a0 bottom and the system fails entirely.\u00a0 This has not been happened, but the measures to improve the situation have been difficult.<\/p>\n At full efficiency the Cantareira<\/em> reservoir supplies 31 thousand liters of water a second to 9 million people.\u00a0 By September\u00a0 (24th) the newspaper Fohla de S\u00e3o Paulo<\/em> reported that the system had fallen to about half that performance \u2014\u00a0 to 14 thousand liters\/second and 9 million to 5 million people.\u00a0 The slack in providing water to the northern region of the city has been taken up by shifting some load to other systems.<\/p>\n Load sharing is more effective if there is a metropolitan-wide system of integration, but that is not yet in place.<\/p>\n Another second tactic is rationing. This modifies the behavior of end-users by\u00a0 simply shrinking the supply or, alternately, the hours of access. According to some newspaper accounts, certain areas of the affected zone are often without water for several days.\u00a0 Sometimes the rationing is by time of day, reportedly as low in some places as 20 of 24 hours with dry faucets and toilets.\u00a0 This is a working district so people may not be in their homes when there is water.\u00a0 They need water tanks (caixas d\u2019agua<\/em>) that could be filled and would bridge the off-times of the municipal water.<\/p>\n The S\u00e3o Paulo mayor Geraldo Alckmin promised 20,000 new water tanks to be installed in troubled areas.\u00a0 Thar was during an election campaign.\u00a0 Only a fraction have been installed.\u00a0 The city claims that they have not been able to deliver the tanks to many (or even most) households because nobody is home when the trucks come by (during the working hours of the city employees, of course).\u00a0 This troubled half-solution is proceeding slowly, and only (it appears) under great pressure from the press.<\/p>\n Yet, the water tank is a basic feature of the Brazilian countryside and of most towns and cities in the interior.\u00a0 Even in better-supplied areas, homes, businesses and factories use the tanks to stabilize their water supply.\u00a0 This is true all over Brazil, in cities and in rural areas.<\/p>\n The problem, again, is one of distribution.\u00a0 In this case it is the far-flung neighborhoods of S\u00e3o Paulo working people that are at the short end of the distribution chain.<\/p>\n But load sharing and infrastructure provide one approach to redistributing the water supply. Another is modifying consumer behavior.\u00a0 For those that are more generously supplied there are a number of incentives to reduce consumption.\u00a0 S\u00e3o Paulo initiated a system of fees (equivalent to fines) for usage above normal, and included a bonus for reductions in use.\u00a0 Modifying consumer behavior in the better-supplied systems theoretically freed water to be distributed to the troubled districts such as those served by the Cantareira Reservoir.<\/p>\n By March, 2016 the S\u00e3o\u00a0 Paulo situation had improved considerably due to heavy rains.\u00a0 As a sign of improvement the system of fees and bonuses was scheduled to be suspended.<\/p>\n Recycling and Waste Management<\/strong><\/p>\n There is an interconnected set of issues where water supply is limited and waste management is troubled.\u00a0 In this small city of Mirinzal trash is routinely dumped (see large appliances\u00a0 at photo right) and used tires are unceremoniously left about.\u00a0 Both catch water during the wet season and become possible breeding grounds for mosquitoes.\u00a0 In days of the Aedes Aegipti mosquito, such diseases as Zika, Chikunkunya and Dengue are major public issues (as is the spread of microencephalitis for which the mosquite may be a vector).<\/p>\n Managing water in the rainy season is important in its own way, as is distributing water in scarcity.\u00a0 Trash and waste disposal are deeply interconnected with the water supply in both rural and urban areas.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some Views from the Interior<\/strong><\/p>\n Water tanks are ubiquitous in the smaller cities of Brazil.\u00a0 The tanks are vital in the interior regions with no municipal water supply (photo above of ox cart, and the section below on caixas d\u2019agua<\/em>).\u00a0 Settlements and towns in the country are often spread along rivers and water sources, but those sources are heavily used, vulnerable and the water often dries up or is unsafe.\u00a0 The woman in the photo above is carrying household water from a common water source to her home.\u00a0 This is not an unusual scene in povoadas<\/em>. The most common source is be a well or a jointly-used water tank.\u00a0 Rarely does a natural source meet local needs during the dry season.<\/p>\n Since much of our research is based in the provincial capital of S\u00e3o Lu\u00eds and in the interior of the state of Maranh\u00e3o, most of the photographs below are of that region.\u00a0 Not shown are the indigenous regions of the interior where in September of 2015 there was a major water emergency, exacerbated by fires, in the forests of the interior.\u00a0 Several cities declared water emergencies and much forested land was threatened.\u00a0 There was insufficient water to fight a major fire.<\/p>\n These issues compound problems created by both nature by human and political behavior.<\/p>\n By comparison, S\u00e3o Paulo officials said that the water situation was only \u201creally serious\u201d when we begin to see trucks of water roaming the streets of the city.<\/p>\n In S\u00e3o Lu\u00eds we see the water trucks almost daily.<\/p>\n Water in the federal state of Maranh\u00e3o<\/strong><\/p>\n Maranh\u00e3o is a long way from the metropolitan centers of Rio de Janeiro and S\u00e3o Paulo.\u00a0 Like those centers, it is on or near the Atlantic Ocean, but is dependent on its fresh water sources in the interior.\u00a0 These systems are underdeveloped in general, and subject to shortages in dry seasons.<\/p>\n Readers of Brazilian popular fiction and many films are aware that the region of the sert\u00e3o<\/em> (often translated as \u201cbacklands\u201d) has been depopulated for decades because of drought.<\/p>\n This region is has similarities to America\u2019s \u201cdust bowl\u201d which emptied out much of the western region of the American Midwest during the dust storms of several decades ago.\u00a0 In the United States this gave rise to a national rural recovery administration.\u00a0 This period was memorialized in such books\/films as John Steinbeck\u2019s Grapes of Wrath,\u00a0<\/em>and in the photography of Dorothea Lange and others working for the Farm Services Administration.<\/p>\n The sertao<\/em> is Brazil\u2019s rough analogue to the American dust bowl.\u00a0 It is not geographically part of the federal state of Maranh\u00e3o, but some of the dry-season problems of Maranh\u00e3o are reminiscent of these famous dust bowl regions. The beautiful green of the countryside and its forests become dry and dusty waiting for the rains.\u00a0 Even the palm trees and ground foliage get dusty. In many years the rains are not enough to replenish the water systems.\u00a0 This threatens rice and cotton\u00a0 crops, cattle production, and the lives of the inhabitants.<\/p>\n Like the dust bowl, the Northeast of Brazil, of which Maranh\u00e3o is a part, is a major source of out-migration.\u00a0 People in the interior migrate to Maranh\u00e3o, and many others make the longer trip to major cities like S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n In S\u00e3o Paulo, however, they may live in a district like that served by Cantareira where water is in very short supply.\u00a0 In some sense, moving the population contributes to moving the \u201cwater problem\u201d from place to place in Brazil.<\/p>\n Even where there may be water, the distribution systems may be only rudimentary \u2014 for example, as in the village market described below.<\/p>\n The first photo from the interior is from the small city of Pindar\u00e9 where the market is a major outlet for freshly-caught fish.\u00a0 This is a major source of sustenance and economic life in the region.<\/p>\n The market in Pindar\u00e9 has a common water source \u2014 the faucet below provides water for cleaning fish and other market needs.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In villages and povoadas<\/em> in the interior, food preparation is a matter of careful planning and complicated hygiene.\u00a0 The scene below brings back childhood memories of my grandparents\u2019 farm where animals were butchered in the open and shared by many families.\u00a0 There was little refrigeration and the best way to preserve meat was to keep it on the hoof.<\/p>\n In the scenes below animals come to the party alive and become dinner in the course of the celebration.\u00a0 This is not \u201canimal sacrifice\u201d in the religious sense, but rather a practical way of feeding a large group.\u00a0 The practice gains a spiritual\/community sense in that there are often rituals or moments of praise for the gifts of food that they share.<\/p>\n Food Preparation<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some Household Systems<\/em><\/p>\n Grocery stores sell 6-liter bottles of household water.\u00a0 These are helpful, but also enter the refuse stream of un-recycled plastic in the waste system.\u00a0 More efficient are the delivery services that will bring you a 20-liter bottle within an hour or so if you live in a major service area.<\/p>\n A commonly-used word is \u201cDiskagua,\u201d which means you simply call and the water is delivered, usually by motorcycle (the disk<\/em> portion of the word refers to the old-style telephones with a \u201cdisk\u201d of numbers on a rotary dialer).<\/p>\n If you live in the interior away from an incorporated city or town, getting the bottles is much more difficult.\u00a0 In some areas delivery is by truck, in others by motorcycle or by bicycle.<\/p>\n We have seen unlucky motorcycle diskagua<\/em> drivers in heavy traffic with damaged and leaking 20-liter bottles lashed to the back.\u00a0 In larger areas there are trucks carrying the bottles, but the \u201ccapillary\u201d distribution to individual households is usually by small vehicle (or even by donkey cart in some places).<\/p>\n Apartments in the city of S\u00e3o Lu\u00eds use this system since there is no potable water in the municipal pipes.\u00a0 Many\u00a0 have a boutique dispenser that also cools the water.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The older water system below is from the kitchen of a pousada<\/em>, or bed-and-breakfast where we sometimes stay in Pindar\u00e9.\u00a0 We don\u2019t think of this as a 5-star experience, and on our last visit there was no water at all until sundown.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Plastic bottles are part of the solution, and part of the problem.<\/p>\n In the household systems above and below you can see that plastic bottles are an important part of the system.<\/p>\n Dependence on water, and dependence on plastic, go together in Brazil, creating a huge problem of recycling and plastic waste.\u00a0 Plastic waste adds to other waste\/rubbish removal problems to create standing water where mosquitoes breed in season.\u00a0 This chain of interconnected water-refuse-public health issues begins with problematic hygiene in sewage and water systems, water shortages, generation of plastic alternatives for water, and the absence of recycling in many areas.<\/p>\n Solving any of these problems is like doing paper work with the Brazilian bureaucracy (where \u201cCatch 22\u201d is a basic situation) \u2014 you often can\u2019t do just one thing at one office, you need to solve several other problems at different offices (which may be closed or across town).\u00a0 The public health analogue is in the interconnectedness of water, sewage, waste removal, and recycling (all of which are, in turn, related in some way to other infrastructure issues in roads and the underlying water\/sewer systems).<\/p>\n It is difficult to encourage recycling of plastic or reduce people\u2019s dependence on plastic when getting water is so critical.\u00a0 You might ask whether Brazilian could not simply get a reusable water bottle (like campers use). Many recycling-conscious people in other countries use camping bottles and refil them from a water tap.\u00a0 This works where the municipal water supply is safe.\u00a0 Many people do indeed reuse plastic water water bottles to reduce cost and waste.\u00a0 When we are traveling in the interior we try to reuse commercial plastic bottles filled from our 20-liter tank at home \u2014 that is how we learned that they are thin and fragile, often cracking and losing the water (in your luggage or camera bag).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The home below is a modest one, but has the rare good fortune to have its own well water.\u00a0 There is otherwise no municipal system of water or sanitation in this neighborhood in the interior of Maranh\u00e3o (near the city of Ros\u00e1rio).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In several of these photos (including the one below) you can see that individual households do try to recycle plastic bottles to cut cost and waste.\u00a0 The bottle are not made to last, however.<\/p>\n Americans will be familiar with similar situations in the United States.\u00a0 Residents in Flint Michigan suffered a serious pollution of their water, apparently due to decisions made at the state level.\u00a0 As their water became unpotable, they were forced to buy bottled water (in plastic bottles, usually).\u00a0 The irony is compounded by the fact that some of the bottled water supply was originally from the Great Lakes \u2014 rebottled and sold to them commercially.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Calhau Beach Restaurants, S\u00e3o Lu\u00eds<\/strong><\/p>\n The beaches in S\u00e3o Lu\u00eds are lined with restaurant and bars.\u00a0 They vary in quality and hygiene, but some are quite popular regardless of what lies behind.\u00a0 On the beach side of these businesses you can see the motley infrastructure that supports the kitchen and bathrooms.\u00a0 It is hard to tell how much the bathrooms and kitchens are supported by city water or sewer system.\u00a0 On rainy days effluent from the city purges into the bay.<\/p>\n The restaurant may be doing alright, but the runoff is part of the pollution in the the San Marcos Bay.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Ubiquitous Water Tank (caixa da agua<\/em>)<\/strong><\/p>\n The various household and commercial systems are often depending on water tanks for stabilizing the water supply.\u00a0 They show up in the photos above.\u00a0 Below are more such systems showing how common and essential they are outside areas of reliable municipal systems.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Sanitation<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Water and Brazil This is a preliminary reflection on water in Brazil, a country that, in principle, has enough for its needs and then some.\u00a0 The problem is in the distribution and management of water, and in the infrastructure that should carry it to the Brazilian population.\u00a0 Later versions of this post will have … Continue reading Water and Brazil, Some Reflections and a Few Photos<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-images-of-sao-luis-and-maranhao"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meredithwwatts.com\/MWBrazilBlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meredithwwatts.com\/MWBrazilBlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meredithwwatts.com\/MWBrazilBlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meredithwwatts.com\/MWBrazilBlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meredithwwatts.com\/MWBrazilBlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2051"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.meredithwwatts.com\/MWBrazilBlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2125,"href":"https:\/\/www.meredithwwatts.com\/MWBrazilBlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051\/revisions\/2125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meredithwwatts.com\/MWBrazilBlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meredithwwatts.com\/MWBrazilBlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meredithwwatts.com\/MWBrazilBlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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