Distribuição da água do projeto de integração do rio São Francisco no Estado da Paraíba - eixo leste: análise de perdas.

Abstract

Within the northeast semiarid region of Brazil the water scarcity is an economical and social development limiting problem, besides being a source of conflicts. Water storage reservoirs were built to minimize the problem, although the climatic uncertainties have leaded the decision makers to maximize the storage of water, given priority to human supply and limiting other water uses. These reservoir operation policies have low water use efficiency due to high water losses by reservoir spillage and evaporation. In order to meet water demands, besides supporting the region’s economical development, which is repressed by the hydrogical uncertainty, the São Francisco River Integration Project – PISF was created and included the Septentrional Northeast basins. The system under study is located in the Paraíba River basin, east axis of the project. The human water supply demands have been estimated based on the population growth, having as an horizon the year of 2035. Current irrigation water demands have also been considered. The system simulation has been carried out via a mathematical model based on the network flow, AcquaNet for many scenarios and operation policies with the purpose of quantifying the water losses in the system, which is composed of four reservoirs in series and located in the High and Medium Courses of the Paraíba river basin. The proposal by the Ministry for National Integration of water transport through the Paraíba river, subject to losses in transit, has been compared to other scenarios where part of the water will be transported through pipes along the basin, whose layouts were proposed by Agência Executiva de Gestão das Águas do Estado da Paraíba – AESA, in a way to increase the number of benefit cities. The attained results shows that the transportation of water through pipes along the basin is a viable solution because, besides the water gain, there is also a social gain, since the project would integrate a large number of towns and assure the supply of their water demands. Moreover, it would provide the needful support to the economic development of these cities.