The city as a participant in the protection of groundwater in Brazil

Abstract

Brazilian environmental legislation aims to ensure the protection and preservation of the environment, and particularly its natural resources, in search of a better quality of life for all. The lack of force in existing statutes, however, sometimes renders the purpose of the law ineffective. Our water sources, providing this vital and essential element for life, are suffering pollution and contamination. Our focus here is on the subject of groundwater, which is widely relied upon in Brazil as a water source, but treated in some places in an uncontrolled way, and due to different forms of pollution and contamination arriving at the vulnerable areas of the aquifers, may easily be compromised both in quality and quantity. Constitutional authority to legislate on groundwater has been given to the Member States, since it falls outside the legal remit of individual municipalities. Studies show, however, that pollutants are reaching the aquifers from the overlying soil, which leads to a demand that the municipalities should use their constitutional authority to legislate on land use and its management to protect and preserve these important water sources, especially in the area of the Guarani aquifer. To this effect, we propose the creation of a Special Environment Zoning tool (ZEA) to limit land use in areas of aquifer vulnerability, by which municipalities become active participants in the protection process aimed at preventing harm to the groundwater of the Guarani aquifer.