Captação, tratamento e usos da água em comunidades rurais do município de Igarapé-Açu/Pa

Abstract

The Amazon region of Brazil is wide world renowned for its biodiversity and vast watershed. Despite the abundance of water resources, the region has limitations to access the tools, inherent to a proper management of water use, instituted by public policies, especially in rural areas. By this perspective, it is proposed the study of catchment, treatment and water use in rural communities in the municipality of Igarapé Acu-PA. The objective of this study is to describe how the rural population, located in the watershed of the Igarapé Cumaru, captures, treats and uses water, anchoring on the public policies for this theme. This study is structured in three papers, which describes the catchment practices, treatment and water use and its relation with public policies and norms at the federal, state and municipal scales. The survey was also worried to register how the rural population has managed this resource, describing the uses and abuses of water by the community. It is noteworthy that the three articles are grounded in data collected in the field and in the relevant literature about the theme of study. Therefore, the field research was done with use of tools such as participant observation, scripts, closed questionnaires and open interviews. Data revealed that in the municipality there is no water treatment station, with only the distribution, by the health department, of sodium hypochlorite. But most farmers (100% São José, 72% Cumaru), despite receiving the product does not make use, on the argument that interferes in the water taste. It was also found that the supply microsystems need metering valves. It is highlighted, finally, that there is in the municipality, a limitation in the execution of what regulates the public policies, however, the rural population ─ spatially dispersed, with different needs of water resources ─ should be considered in context.