This report examines the current system of water abstraction and pollution charges in operation in Brazil. It assesses the current system's implementation challenges and provides possible solutions. The report explores how water charges can be both an effective means for dealing with water security issues, and a tool for enhancing economic growth and social welfare. Specific analysis is put forward for three case studies in the State of Rio de Janiero, the Paraiba do Sul River Basin and the Piancó-Piranhas-Açu River Basin. The report highlights that water charges need to operate in conjunction with an effective water regulatory regime and concludes with an Action Plan based on practical steps and recommendations for its implementation in the short, medium and long-term.

This report examines the current system of water abstraction and pollution charges in operation in Brazil. It assesses the Current system’s implementation challenges and provides possible solutions.

"Although procedures for pricing "retail" distribution have been established for a long time, methods for pricing bulk or "wholesale" water supplies are still evolving." How to finance the infrastructure and service of bulk water supply, and how to use pricing to achieve efficient allocation and use of water as a resource are the central issues that emerge from discussions about bulk water pricing. Efficiency will lead to allocating water resources better, reducing water losses caused by poor maintenance of the supply systems, and increased monitoring of water quality. At first glance, Brazil may not appear to be a relevant country from which to draw lessons in distributing scarce water resources, since it contains 12 percent of the world's fresh water supply. However, with its vast territory and issues of regional drought and population explosion, Brazil provides a unique environment in which to demonstrate how adequate pricing of bulk water on a regional level can help allocate water efficiently. This paper offers a framework for bulk water pricing reform and examines the lessons from recent analytical work and practice in Brazil, as well as relevant international experience. It then offers recommendations for the development of both water pricing and allocation policies to facilitate continued implementation of bulk water pricing in Brazil.

This document compares analytical work done on Brazil with the experience of bulk water pricing in other countries to arrive at practical recommendations for determining fair bulk water pricing in Brazil. Adequate pricing of bulk water is critical to ensure efficient allocation of water, and to properly fund the maintenance and operation costs involved with collecting water at its natural source and distributing it to intermediate water users. Two central issues emerge from these discussions: How to finance the infrastructure and service of bulk water supply, and how pricing can be used to achieve efficient allocation and use of water as a resource. Attaining efficiency will lead to better allocation of water resources, which will reduce water losses caused by poor maintenance of water supply systems and inadequate attention to water contamination. Of the varied methods used to address these issues, public water allocation is regarded by the authors as being the least effective and efficient when you compare relevant international experiences. Although Brazil has recognized the need for bulk water pricing, it has not yet established an overall framework of regulations and pricing mechanisms. Without such a framework, the willingness to establish appropriate water pricing mechanisms may descend.

This book assesses the performance of Brazil’s water governance and suggests policy recommendations for strengthening the co-ordination between federal and state water policies and for setting up more robust water allocation regimes that can better cope with future risks.

How do institutional arrangements established by law become operational in practice? It takes work for them to develop problem-solving capabilities and win recognition from others-what the authors call "practical authority." Drawing from a decade-long, multi-site study of efforts to transform freshwater management in Brazil, the authors show how an assortment of protagonists-from state officials to university professors to activists-struggled to breathe life into new institutional designs. Their account weaves together three decades of national and state law-making with experimentation in establishing new kinds of participatory water management organizations. Exploring this process in sixteen river basins, the authors examine why some of those organizations adapted creatively to challenges while others never got off the ground. To approach this complex, volatile, and non-linear process of transformation, the book develops a framework for investigating the actions and practices of institution-building.

Annotation This study focuses on water resources management, water supply and sanitation, and environmental management in Brazil.

This book is a product of Brazilian Academy of Sciences Study Group about water issue. The water cycle was addressed based on an integrated point of view, aiming at joining technological and ecological solutions and integrating quantitative and qualitative aspects of this important environmental asset. Issues such as the water resources management and irrigated agriculture, water and health, water and economy, conservation and reuse as management tools, water in the Brazilian semi arid, water in Amazon, urbanization and water resources, education for the sustainability of water resources, groundwater, availability, pollution and eutrophication of water and science, technology and innovation are of the utmost importance for this exact moment in Brazil, and particularly to the State of Sao Paulo. Addressing these issues will undoubtedly contribute towards a sustainable management of water resources trough the coordinated work of different fields of science, progressing a systemic view about water, that would then finally allow management professionals the possibility of an integral action in anticipating problems and thus anticipate solutions.

This book argues that the economic appeal of using water charges to promote efficiency in usage and pollution control can be constrained by institutional and operational problems. Analysing the cases of France, Mexico and Brazil, the authors 'respecti