3) The Brazilian Northeast: main issues

As described above, most Northeastern Brazil possesses an irregular semi-arid climate, and a thin and fragile soil cover. Anthropogenic deforestation processes generated excessive run-off, surface water erosion, wind deflation and increased aridity, while inadequate irrigated farming produced water logging and salinization, affecting land productivity.

The political, social and environmental factors mentioned before were, and still are, the main causes of poverty in the nordeste.

In order to address these problems, several Brazilian governments of the late twentieth century have invested large sums of money developing water engineering works: dams, canals, pumping and irrigation systems, water wells, etc. These projects only provided partial solutions to Northeastern economic and social problems. Some people think that new, more comprehensive projects, are needed, while others believe that money will be wasted, and a completely different approach is required.

Lately, the Brazilian government has initiated a process for the construction of a water transposition system from the largest Northeastern basin (São Francisco basin) to several Northeastern basins in the States of Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraiba, and Pernambuco. There are vivid discussions on the appropriateness of the scheme.

This report will provide some basic information on the Brazilian Northeast water resources and problems that may help to understand the arguments that experts, activists and politicians are putting forward.

More specifically, the report will describe existing water resources, including those that are often unjustly forgotten: the groundwater resources. The main aquifers of the region will be listed and described and, preliminarily evaluated.

Finally, the main water issues will be discussed in order to provide some guidelines for interpretation of the complex environmental and hydrological panorama of the Northeast.