Participação pública em gestão de recursos hídricos: uma análise do caso paraibano.

Abstract

Public participation has emerged as a way to ensure more egalitarian practices, involving various actors with equal trading conditions in a process of open dialogue, in which the interests are as important as the positions, to collaborative construction solutions (Vasconcelos et al, 2005). In Brazil, participatory and decentralized management is adopted as a fundamental, principle of the National Water Resources Policy (PNRH) - established by Law 9.433/1997 - and should involve civil society, water users and the Public Power. In this sense, the River Basin Committees (CBHs) were created with the aim of promoting the debates on issues related to water resources and coordinating the activities of the entities involved in river basin level. In the State of Paraiba, the State Policy on Water Resources (PERH), established by Law 6.308/96 (as amended in 2007 by Law 8.446/07, for compliance with the guidelines of PNRH), also adopts the participatory management as a foundation, but the CBHs were only installed in 2007 and still face operational difficulties. In this context, this research evaluates the performance of the State's River Basin Committees in terms of effectiveness of public participation- from the analysis of their formation process, installation and operation. The methodology comprises the following steps: (i) Status Quo Characterization, wherein the current State of Paraiba's water management is checked and the physical characteristics of the state CBHs' acting areas are described, (ii) Case Study Characterization, in which the hypotheticaldeductive and comparative methods are used, and a questionnaire to members of state committees is applied, in order to analyze the formation and identify the actors that make up the CBHs (iii) Construction of Indicators, where, using a multi-criteria analysis model, criteria are established and Indicators of Committees" Functioning (IFC) and Management Results (IRG) are determined; and (iv) Results Analysis, which highlights the results of document analysis, interviews and application of Indicators to the state CBHs. Courses of action are suggested to overcome the identified weaknesses and improve the public participation quality in the State of Paraiba's River Basin Committees.