Water Policy Vol 10 No 5 pp 425–438 © IWA Publishing 2008 doi:10.2166/wp.2008.058
Drought and water policies in Northeast Brazil: backgrounds and rationale
José Nilson B. Campos and Ticiana Marinho de Carvalho Studart
Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, Universidade Federal do Ceará, P.O. Box 6018, Fortaleza, Ceará, 60451-970 Brazil . Tel: (+55) 85 3366 9769, Fax: (+55) 85 288-9627. *Corresponding author nilson@ufc.br
ABSTRACT
The drought in Northeast Brazil has been the object of many studies and debates. The theme is controversial, with lots of facets and has been under discussion for a long time. After the 1877 drought, which lasted three years and caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people, the search for an understanding of the phenomenon and for its possible solution has been intensified. Experts and lots of non-experts took part in that process, proposing solutions or just giving their opinion. Many of them contributed and aggregated new knowledge and views. A small number of others, in fact, proposed very exotic solutions. This paper provides an historical review of how the issue has been addressed and makes a conceptual approach classifying the solutions and analyzing the efficiency of them. Some proposals are described, such as: the use of camels, crystalline rocks’ blasting, investment for drought forecast processes, damming and irrigation policies and water basin transfer from São Francisco River.
Keywords: Drought; Drought management; Drought solution; Semi-arid region
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