Interbasin Water Transfers: The Brazilian Experience and International Case Comparisons

José Andrade (), Paulo Barbosa (), Luiz Souza and Daniel Makino

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2011, vol. 25, issue 8, 1915-1934

Abstract: This paper critically examines Brazil’s transbasin diversion experiences and two select, large-scale transbasin projects outside of Brazil. Rather than simply compare Brazil’s experiences with international cases, the authors explore the historical context of the projects, focusing on the water resources and environmental regulatory and institutional frameworks in place during the initial proposals and how they influenced the projects’ development and completion rates. Huge investments, the lengthy time span between the date of the initial project proposals and the start of construction, the need to garner public and political support, and more recently, the need to fulfill national and regional environmental laws are major factors underlying heated public debates about the proposed projects. After a broad discussion about the subject, the authors examine a recently approved large-scale Brazilian project, the Sao Francisco river transbasin diversion. This river diversion project is considered crucial to the economic development of Brazil’s semi-arid northeastern region. Despite the fact that this government-funded project was debated for several decades among the various stakeholders, it was approved under Brazil’s newly formed water resources regulatory and environmental framework, which enabled improvements in various key technical aspects of the project, and greater involvement of various key social players. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Keywords: Water transbasin diversion; Water supply; Water resources management; Interbasin transfers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11269-011-9781-6 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:25:y:2011:i:8:p:1915-1934

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-011-9781-6

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().