Recursos hídricos paraibano: uma análise jurídico-cultural na cidade de Sousa-PB.

Abstract

After centuries of a culture of abundance driven by the rampant degradation by qualitative and quantitative shortage of fresh water, the contemporary society has understood that this natural resource is essential for the survival of life on Earth and it needs care and rational use. Thus arose the State Law No. 6308/96 and the Federal Law No. 9433/97, that establishes, respectively, the State Policy and the National Policy of Water Resources. Through a legal approach to water-cultural, it aimed to interpret legal texts hydro-environmental federal and state and identify the level of awareness of the population investigated about state and national politics of water resources. We used the inductive method / hermeneutic framework and the techniques of legislative interpretation and application of the questionnaire. There was a field research in a state high school, located in the city of Sousa - PB, and applied randomly, 01 (a) a questionnaire with 426 (four hundred and twenty-six) social actors representing 26.91% of total 1583 (a thousand, five hundred and eighty three) actors. The software used to process the data was SPSS (Statistical Package Applied to Social Sciences). The law No. 6308/96 provides that access to water is right and it is a basic principle of state policy for water. Law No. 9433/97 establishes as one of the management Information System on Water Resources and as one of the decentralized management with the participation of the public authorities, users and communities in decision making. However, from the data collected it was revealed that only 3.1% of respondents know the State Law of Water Resources of Paraiba. It is interesting to note that only 21.8% of respondents know the Executive Agency Water Management of the State of Paraiba (AESA), the agency responsible for managing the waters of Paraiba. In this light, it appears that the State requires improvements in its communication channels to enable a transparent process of dialogue between AESA and Paraiba society, with the scope to ensure the right to information under Art. 5, sections XIV and XXIII of the Federal Constitution and protect even the democratization of public policies, so that society can become aware of the current situation and participate in decision making in place of water and environmental issues.