Groundwater management in Recife

Abstract

In developing countries, the rapid urbanization in the second half of the twentieth century provoked radical changes in the cities with serious water related problems, such as freshwater scarcity, sewage and drainage problems. This growth produced several impacts on groundwater resources such as land impermeabilization and change in groundwater recharge, excessive exploitation and groundwater pollution. These facts have demanded better planning and management, especially in areas with high dense population. In Brazil, water legislation has been approved by parliament, a water agency has been created and technical knowledge of water resources has improved. Management strategies incorporated several issues: planning, legislation, zoning, licensing, concession and controlling. Monitoring, hydrochemical analyses and groundwater modeling have been performed to obtain more information for better management towards sustainability.

Keywords:

• groundwater
• water resources management
• sustainability
• groundwater salinization
• Brazil

Acknowledgement

The authors acknowledge the support by CPRH (Brazil) and FACEPE (Brazil) in several activities of this research. The third author thanks CNPq (Brazil) for the master degree scholarship provided by CT-HIDRO Research Fund. Special thanks are expressed to Dr Waldir Duarte Costa for providing hydrogeological data.