Abstract
This paper addresses one of the important issues that face water against its economic aspects: the use of economic instruments to manage water resources. First, historic and conceptual issues are considered. In a second part, the Brazilian water resource legislation is analyzed. In a third part, the water user pays principles (UPP) and water polluter pays principles (PPP) are considered, with their contributions towards adoption of economic instruments for water resources management. Finally, a comparison between these principles and the reality of the current Brazilian water resources management is presented, showing that there is still much to move.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The exposure is also true with regards to the administration of air pollution.
- 3.
For a comprehensive review on this progression, see Lustosa et al. (2003).
- 4.
If the tariff per unit discharge is sufficiently high, it will cost less for the agent to treat the sizeable portion of the sewage and pay for the residual pollution, than to pay for the total discharge of the generated sewage.
- 5.
This is why, many times, the term User Payer Principle is used to designate a billing for abstraction and consumption of water. Nevertheless, to us it seems more appropriate to maintain the allocation of UPP to encompass abstraction, consumption and the discharge in effluents, because the user of a water resource is both he who abstracts and consumes, as well as he who discharges into effluents.
- 6.
A more ample and profound review, including the issue of billing for discharge in effluents can be found in Hartmann (2008).
- 7.
The classic reference with regards to the demand of water for irrigation is James and Lee (1971).
- 8.
Obviously, these effects will occur when the price charged becomes significant enough to result in a deduction in use of water; at this moment, Brazilian experiences have not reached this level.
- 9.
Such curve is construed by the basin’s agency, based on information on abatement technologies commercially available (in general, end-of-pipe).
- 10.
Evidently, it is possible to initiate the pollution abatement process using, as of not, pure financing tariffs. This implies in specific agreements with the productive sectors that will receive the funds raised and perform the treatment for one application in the same hydrographic basin of Rio dos Sinos (see Pereira et al. 1999).
- 11.
The case of the Rio dos Sinos basin is enlarged in order to contemplate this possibility in Cánepa and Pereira (2001).
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Cánepa, E.M., Pereira, J.S., Lanna, A.E. (2017). Water and Economy. In: de Mattos Bicudo, C., Galizia Tundisi, J., Cortesão Barnsley Scheuenstuhl, M. (eds) Waters of Brazil. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41372-3_3
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