Brazil drought: water rationing alone won't save Sao Paulo

Marussia Whatley and Rebeca Lerer in the Guardian (UK): It should be the rainy season. Instead Sao Paulo state is experiencing a third consecutive year with soaring temperatures and rainfall patterns well below historic records.

The main water reservoirs are operating at their lowest capacity. The Cantareira reservoir system, which serves more than nine million people in the state, is only 5% full. At the Alto Tietê reservoir network, which supplies three million people in greater Sao Paulo, water levels are below 15%.

Simple calculations indicate that given the current level of consumption versus the predicted raining patterns there is only enough water on the system to last four to six months. That means the water could run out before the next rainy season starts in November. State officials recently announced a potential rationing program of five days without water and two days with, in case the February and March rains do not refill the reservoirs.

This extreme climate scenario, combined with a series of management flaws, political negligence and a culture of waste and pollution, is bringing the largest metropolitan region of Brazil to the brink of collapse.

Since 2013, after decades of warnings about misguided development policies and destructive land use practices, experts and civil society organisations have been calling for increasingly strong measures to reduce water consumption to keep the minimum secure levels for supply reservoirs. The calls have been ignored by the state government – the system’s main operator – and federal and municipal authorities turned a blind eye to the severity of the situation....

Image from a drought in northeastern Brazil. Shot by LeoNunes, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Sao Paulo warns of severe water rationing

Space Daily via AFP: Authorities in Sao Paulo, Brazil's richest state and economic hub, have warned they are considering severe water rationing if the country's worst drought in 80 years continues. Officials outlined draconian plans for alternating cuts that would leave areas without water for five days at a time.

"If the rain persists in not falling into the Cantareira reservoir system, the solution would be for very heavy rationing," said Paulo Massato, director of the state water company Sabesp. Sabesp runs the Cantareira system, which supplies nearly half of the Sao Paulo metropolitan area, South America's largest city with some 20 million people.

"The rationing would see two days with water and then five without," he said late Tuesday.
Massato said it was the only way to avoid a total cut in water supplies, which have been depleted by months of severe drought that have sent water levels to their lowest levels in living memory. Unless it rains soon, supplies could run out altogether by March....

Sao Paulo skyline shot by Jurema Oliveira, Wikimedia Commons. he copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the source (http://www.fotosedm.hpg.ig.com.br/) is cited

Water crisis threatens thirsty Sao Paulo

Space Daily via AFP: Sao Paulo is thirsty. A severe drought is hitting Brazil's largest city and thriving economic capital with no end in sight, threatening the municipal water supply to millions of people.

The water at the Cantareira reservoirs, which supply about nine million of the 20 million people in the metropolitan area, is at its lowest level ever amid the region's worst drought in 45 years. Other reservoirs are also in distress after 15 months of overstretching. And more dry weather is forecast.

Prosecutors have threatened to sue the state government to make it begin rationing water, warning that Sao Paulo is facing "the worst water crisis ever to hit the region and the collapse of its entire reservoir system." But with Governor Geraldo Alckmin up for reelection in October, his administration has vowed to handle the crisis without rationing the city's water.

State water company Sabesp has encouraged consumers to reduce their usage but also downplayed the shortage, saying it will transfer water from other dams and use emergency reserves if necessary. It says it has enough supplies to last until March 2015 and has vowed not to implement rationing.

But many Sabesp customers suspect their supplies are already being rationed. "Last week we went four whole days without water," said Adilson Becerra, a 36-year-old salesman who lives in the southern suburbs....

Sao Paulo skyline, shot by Jeff Belmonte, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license