Dimensões da segurança hídrica no semiárido: o acesso à água em núcleos de desertificação no Estado do Ceará, Brasil

Abstract

Semi-arid regions are fragmented areas undergoing intense desertification processes, with a strong impact on droughts and water shortages. In Brazil, extreme droughts have intensified with global climate change. To discuss the issue of drought from a political and technical perspective, the concept of global water security emerged in the 1990s, with the aim of guaranteeing access to water for the entire world population. With the aim of investigating access to water in rural communities in desertification areas located in the interior of the state of Ceará and the impact of water infrastructure in these regions, we structured the thesis into three chapters. To this end, in chapter one, we reviewed the literature on global water security in the last decade in semi-arid regions and identified that global water security is already consolidated in the global political discussion and needs to move forward to discussions on local water security. We identified that in Brazil and worldwide, there are several types of technologies for accessing water and that Brazil is one of the regions with the highest concentration of water technologies in rural communities. In chapter two, we analyze and explore the application of TWS products from the Grace mission as a possibility for identifying areas of water availability in the state of Ceará, and we identify that although the products are sensitive for the region, the spatial resolution of the mission compromises local analyses. In the third chapter, we propose territorial zoning by adopting a multi-criteria analysis and classifying water security as very low, low, medium, high, and very high. In addition, we identified areas that need greater attention to the installation of local water infrastructure. We show that 20% of the region is comfortable with water availability and 80% of the region needs appropriate technologies for the installation of water infrastructure.