River friendly community
Finding SOLUTIONS FOR BASIC SANITATION!
River friendly community is a project to prepare the executive plan for the implementation of sewage treatment alternatives in the ZEIS (Zones of Special Social Interest) areas around the Cambury River, within the Comitê de Bacia Hidrográfica do Litoral Norte de SP (River Basin of the North Coast of São Paulo).
This region of the Atlantic Forest is one of the main sources of water resources in Brazil, and is increasingly losing the quality of its waters due to the lack of basic sanitation.
Communities that have migrated from northeastern Brazil to the region since the 1990s survive without the public infrastructure necessary for their quality of life and environmental quality. Without an orderly plan for local growth, pollution, mainly from rivers and streams, is an urgent problem needing to be addressed.
In Brazil, only 53% of the population currently has access to sewage services. In 2013 alone, 2,193 deaths and 14,982 million cases of absences from work due to waterborne diseases were recorded (TRATA BRASIL, 2013). In addition, according to UNESCO (2020), water depletion and pollution are the main causes of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, which in turn reduces ecosystem resilience, making societies more vulnerable to climate risks, such as floods, as well as non-climate risks.
THINKING ABOUT ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS
The elaboration of the detailed design of alternative and decentralized treatments includes the study of possible technologies for each community, according to its own socio-environmental ecosystem.
These are possibilities such as a low-cost septic tank, community filter tank, compact water treatment stations, biodigester, infiltration trenches, evapotranspiration basin, filter gardens and banana tree circles, among others.
These studies will take place with teams of sanitation technicians and environmental educators working in the five communities served by the project for 12 months, promoting interviews, meetings and community workshops, as well as surveys and implementation studies.
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THE FIRST STEPS…
The executive plan is the first step in an unprecedented project in the region, which brings together social actors from different sectors for the common good. The City Hall, the River Basin Committee, partners of local institutions and community leaders to identify the ways to transform bring dignity and quality to people and the environment.
This project is carried out by FunBEA together with the Comitê de Bacia Hidrográfica do Litoral Norte de SP (River Basin Committee of the North Coast of São Paulo), with financial support from the Fundo de Recursos Hídricos (Water Resources Fund) and the Government of São Paulo.
