WATER DEMAND MANAGEMENT IN SEMI-ARID REGIONS: THE CASE OF JAGUARIBE RIVER BASIN

Enormous investments in water infrastructure were made over past decades in Ceará State, mostly in Jaguaribe River Basin. However, an increasing water stress persists in this basin, where municipal and industrial demands compete directly with agriculture. Two reasons contribute for that: first, the actual institutional arrangements for water allocation encourages the use of excessive quantities of water for irrigation; second, the Jaguaribe Basin exports water to Fortaleza, the state’s capital. Historically, the solutions of the relative unbalanced water demand and water supply had invariably been made by exploration of new resources, but now the possibilities of construction of new dams are practically extinguished. So, the alternatives of system’s capacity augmentation must be created on demand side, adopting measures that might influence water user’s behavior. Some measures are already being accomplished, such as legal water rights implementation and sub-basin committees formation. This paper suggests some additional government programmes that should be settled to create the necessary framework for managing water demand in Jaguaribe Basin