AguaSociAL - Water Related Sciences Social Innovation-

Scientific Magazine UAKARI, 2011

Brazil has the highest water availability of any country in the world. Nearly 20% of all the world’s rivers flow on Brazilian soil. Brazil’s herds of cattle, pigs and poultry are among the largest in the world, and the country uses irrigated agriculture extensively, which accounts for most water consumption (approximately 70% of the water consumed in the world). The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), the largest and most important public institution of Brazilian agricultural research, has attempted to develop environmental technologies in order to minimize the impact caused by the scarcity and pollution of water resources. This paper describes the technologies this institution offers to different regions. For this purpose, a descriptive and exploratory study was conducted in various Embrapa research units. The results showed that research on the rational use of water in agriculture has intensified since the early 2000s. However, the pace of growth in agricultural activities and their impact is much greater than that of the generated technologies, demonstrating the difficulty in striking a balance in this relationship. Furthermore, it is clear that that water scarcity and the increasing pollution of shallow and deep waters are complex issues with no short-term solution.

Nature-based Solutions and the Challenges of Water: Accelerating the transition to more sustainable cities, 2022

KEY MESSAGES • Cities are complex social, ecological, technological and economic systems, unsustainable and vulnerable to climate change, especially with respect to issues of water and human health. • Currently, nature-based solutions (NBS) are planned, designed, implemented and monitored in order to meet today’s challenges. This book focuses on water- and sanitation-related issues. • Countries such as Brazil, where a substantial part of the water treatment infrastructure is yet to be built, find interesting options in NBS, whether by using pure systems or by linking them to conventional technologies. • NBS are intrinsically cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral, and require the real and wide-ranging involvement of all parties. • NBS are no panacea to resolve all the challenges. However, projects conducted in different geographical, social and economic scenarios have had positive results and are cost-effective. • This book contains seven topics within 23 concise and objective chapters, which are easy to read and understand. The chapters have been written by researchers and specialists from different fields of knowledge who address different but complementary topics.

Implementation of Decentralized Sanitation Systems with Nature-Based Technologies: Advantages and Challenges in Rural Areas, Slums and Urban Communities (Atena Editora), 2024

There is a growing gap in basic sanitation services in Brazil, highlighting the notable inequality in access to these services, especially in less favored territories. According to the 2022 Demographic Census, almost 50 million Brazilians live in households that use precarious sanitation resources. Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are presented as a way to interfere in sanitation in rural areas, slums and urban communities, since they use natural processes to solve problems for which traditional solutions are unfeasible. This study aims to present 16 individual decentralized sewage systems as alternatives to contribute to solving the lack of basic sanitation and show the advantages of implementing these NBS for sanitation in rural areas, slums and urban communities. Such solutions can meet sanitation needs in a sustainable way, using natural processes and local technological resources, while respecting ecological cycles and promoting environmental, social and economic benefits. We adopted a Critical Analysis approach, based on a bibliographic review of works and research related to the field of study. Funasa (2015), Tonetti et al. (2018) and Vieira (2020) present NBS with individual and decentralized sewage solutions. This approach allows us to verify the patterns, benefits and limitations of these solutions. This work contributes to the understanding of the relevance of these alternatives in promoting health, mitigating social inequalities and providing sustainable sanitation.

NEW WATER CULTURE: CARE, SANITATION AND REUSE, FOR SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL STABILITY (Atena Editora), 2023

Los desafíos que debemos abordar, tiene que ver con la implementación del conocimiento y la tecnología existente en el mundo en torno al tema del agua, la contaminación ambiental y el cambio climático; para la preservación y conservación de nuestros recursos naturales. En esta investigación se estudió un sistema de lodos activados para el tratamiento de aguas residuales con alta concentración de fenol para su reutilización, variando el tiempo de retención hidráulica y la concentración de oxígeno disuelto. Los resultados mostraron la mejor tasa de remoción de DQO (55%) y biodegradación de fenol (49%) durante el experimento IV, a una tasa de dilución del agua residual al 25% (v/v), alimentación de oxígeno disuelto (OD) de 1.5 ppm, tiempo de retención hidráulica (TRH) de 2.81 días y carga orgánica (Bv=7.5kgDQO/m3.d), una vez que la biomasa se aclimato a la presencia de fenol como única fuente de carbono, en experimentos previos.

American Journal of Applied Sciences, 2022

The objective of this study was to review the main rainwater harvesting and treatment systems through a bibliometric analysis from 2000-2021. A bibliometric analysis was used in the R program and VOS viewer, the query involved titles, abstracts, and keywords during the last 20 years (2000-2021). The results indicate that from 2013 onwards, interest in this topic increased. 13% of the publications belong to the academic journal Journal of Cleaner Production. The main author leading the publications is Ghisi, from Brazil, who conducted 24 types of research and one of his papers reached 95 citations. In conclusion, there is evidence of the need to strengthen research in developing countries to contribute to water saving and supply in areas that do not have drinking water.

2015

Poor water quality and lack of access to improved water services continue to be problems in developing countries such as Peru, with a stronger vulnerability in rural communities. Aiming to enhance practical knowledge through a case study in the rural community of Cuncani, this thesis explores why this community has not been able to obtain a sustainable and safe water supply and how a water solution such as the D4field could be sustainably implemented. Based on the theoretical frameworks on water governance, water resources management and sustainability principles for technological implementation, this research gathered data through interviews, a survey in the community and a focus group activity in order to develop a practical comparative analysis to identify key elements for the deployment of the D4field. This thesis finds that the current ineffective institutional arrangements together with cultural barriers such as low awareness on the relationship between water quality and healt...

Water Science and Technology, 2021

A DEWATS (decentralized wastewater treatment system) is an alternative for expanding sanitation. In Brazil, DEWATS is acknowledged by law and is part of the National Sanitation Plan strategy for achieving the treatment of 85.6% of all the generated wastewater by 2033, improving the current treatment index of 49%. This review's aim is to identify DEWATS studies in Brazil and to verify their potential for narrowing the national wastewater treatment deficit. Hence, aspects such as cost, maintenance, and efficiency were assessed. The archival research method (ARM) was used to identify papers published in the last 20 years through the scientific databases of Scopus, Science Direct, and Web of Science. Data regarding the general characteristics of each study were collected and compared to Brazilian environmental regulation and sanitation status. The results showed the evaluation of different technologies as DEWATS, highlighting their flexibility and potential use in 79% of Brazilian c...

IDA World Congress 2022 Proceedings, 2022

The objective of our research is to analyze the main development characteristics and progress of a Brazilian initiative, the Água Doce Program (PAD), which achieved success in its goal to provide good quality fresh water to isolated communities in the Brazilian semi-arid north-eastern region, and proved its resilience against many odds so that features are highlighted which can constitute a reference model for possible similar situations in other countries. The PAD is an initiative of the Federal Government of Brazil that aims to provide access to quality water for human consumption in the Brazilian semi-arid region through desalination systems using reverse osmosis - RO technology. It is the most advanced process currently available for water purification using membranes, which results in the supply of drinking water of excellent quality and balanced in terms of the composition of salts necessary for human health. RO is the technology mostly used worldwide, in particular in countries like Israel, Spain, Australia, Saudi Arabia and the United States. for seawater and brackish water desalination.

Proceedings of the Water Environment Federation, 2009

The USAID-funded Healthy Communities and Municipalities (HCM) Project, implemented by Management Sciences for Health (MSH), helps families and communities in seven Amazonian regions incorporate preventative health behaviors into their lives. During the initial phase of the HCM Project, communities carried out a participatory process to identify their own priorities for improvement, and access to safe water was consistently identified as one of the top three needs. MSH partnered with the USAID Hygiene Improvement Project (HIP) to develop a program to generate behavior change at the household level that would lead to point-of-use water treatment through chlorination, solar disinfection, or boiling. A pilot was carried out in the Curimaná District of the Ucayali Region of Peru and then scaled up to six additional regions. Research was conducted to test the water quality from the various water sources in the communities and within households. All the water sources were found to be contaminated at levels dangerous for consumption. Using this data and the data from additional behavioral research, water treatment protocols were designed, an intervention planned, and training and user materials developed. Master trainers, who were members of local neighborhood councils, district level government, and health post staff, received intensive training to increase their competencies as behavior change agents regarding water, sanitation, and hygiene behaviors and to ensure sustainability beyond the project lifespan. Success of the intervention was evidenced by a significant positive shift, from 49.9 percent to 60 percent, in the key indicator of number of children under the age of two who are consuming safe water, which was measured between the second semester of 2007 and the first semester of 2008. KEYWORDS Point-of-use treatment, household chlorination, SODIS, boiling, disinfection, materials development, IEC, training, community outreach, behavior change informal hand-dug wells that can serve neighborhoods or single HHs, and to a lesser extent rainwater harvesting. Water was collected, stored, and used by HHs with minimal attention paid to maintaining water quality. Sources (wells, rivers, lakes, etc.) were contaminated for a number of reasons and further contamination of water likely occurred during collection, handling, storage, and use. Thus, it was not surprising to find that all water sources, and all water sampled in HHs, showed signs of fecal contamination with high levels of fecal coliform bacteria-all of which were at levels of "high risk" to "very high risk" according to World Health Organization standards. Water sources were observed to lack fundamental infrastructure to prevent contamination. Water treatment was typically absent or otherwise rudimentary and allowed for recontamination. Observed HH treatment practices were not based on empirically developed protocols. People were aware of the role of water in human health and that water can be a disease carrier and took measures (treated water) to address aesthetic issues-i.e., turbidity, taste. Based on the findings that indicated source contamination, documentation of the significant risk of contamination and recontamination of boiled water in the HH, and observations of HH Above: Examples of local water sources in the Curimaná District. Although water from these sources has a low turbidity, it may contain dissolved organic material that can affect efficacy of disinfection by chlorination. Above: Examples of informal hand-dug wells common in the Curimaná District.