Introdução de um indicador de resiliência no índice de risco de escassez hídrica W-ScaRI

Abstract

Water scarcity is the result of the imbalance between the demand and the availability of water resources, which can bring damaging socio-economic and environmental consequences. Scarcity can be associated with drought scenarios, which is a cyclical natural hydrological phenomenon, but it can also be associated with excessive demand, resource wastage, or technological deficits. The extent of the damage caused by potential water scarcity depends not only on the intensity and duration of this condition but also on the vulnerability of the affected system, which is defined by aspects of technology, politics, economy, and social characteristics and behavior. This dissertation focuses precisely on the exposure and vulnerability characteristics present in the risk calculation, specifically considering aspects of resilience enhancement. In this context, based on a previously established water scarcity risk index (WScaRI), its revision is proposed, with the objective of including a simplified resilience measure to improve its representativeness. In this sense, two municipalities in the Paraíba do Sul river basin are taken as case studies and compared, considering the relevance of this basin for the state of Rio de Janeiro in terms of human supply. Barra Mansa and Volta Redonda were chosen as cases for an exploratory methodology, considering the differences in water usage in these municipalities and the different sizes of local tributaries. The behaviors of the components of the original W-ScaRI index were analyzed as a basis for proposing and evaluating the insertion of an indicator to reflect resilience in W-ScaRI-Res. An application was also made for the validation of the proposal, which proved functional as a counterpoint to the mapped vulnerability, for the expansion and strengthening of the representativeness of this index