O fenômeno das águas doces na Região Metropolitana do Salvador: usos, alterações e abandono

Abstract

This study demonstrates how the urbanization/industrialization process of Salvador-BA Metropolitan Area (SMA) appropriated the fresh waters of this territory, generating territorial tensions due to the use of water with changes in its course, and its subsequent abandonment. It was based on the central hypothesis that the current civilizational model, ruled hegemonically in the urban/industrial logic, considered inexorable before other forms of material and immaterial life production, is responsible for compromising availability, quality and access to water in Salvador-BA Metropolitan Area. It was verified that this process is closely related to Planning, based on a conception of Nature that guided the appropriation of the waters of that region as resource. In contrast, in other moments, water has been perceived by the planners as an obstacle to full urban/industrial development. The methodology adopted was the characterization and socio-historical problematization of the relationship between the city of Salvador and its metropolitan area with the waters. The Qualitative Indicators of Metropolitan Rurality were applied in the identification of empirical evidences that stress the rural and urban way of life, specifically in relation to the waters. The evidence was systematized in various forms of dispute expressed in three categories of tensions: (i) in the appropriation of water; (ii) in the uses that generate environmental risks; and (iii) the use of water in cultural activities. The theoretical foundations of this methodology made it possible to characterize the relationship between the rural and the urban, and between these categories and water, which are proposed as Qualitative Indicators of Tensions on Use of Water (IQTA).