Water resources policy and administrative management

The Lim o-Verde village`s Kaiow Indigenous Community currently lives in a restricted area with a high level of environmental degradation in the Paran -Paraguai Basin. Lack of water affects the health and well being of the community. The main objective of this project is the recuperation of 75 hectares of native vegetation (Cerrado) within the broader village area. The second major activity of the project has important implications in terms of reducing rainfall surface run-off and reducing surface water contamination. The village itself is situated high in the catchment area of the River Amambai, which is itself a major micro-catchment of the Paran River. Within this activity, there are two main components that impact the hydrology in this part of the Paran River. Through short courses and community working bees, the project will construct three micro-catchment basins, in which a system of broad shallow, almost level ditches (swales) will capture surface run-off rainfall and lead this water into shallow infiltration basins. The declivity of these ditches (swales) is so slight that during light rainfall events all rainfall will infiltrate directly into the soil and there will be almost no surface movement of water. During heavier rainfall, these swales will direct all the surface water from an area of more than 30 hectares into a shallow depression (approximately 5 hectares in area) where the water will be held so that it can infiltrate into the soil (and eventually the local aquifers). These physical structures alone are sufficient to reduce all surface movement of water during heavy storms, leading to a reduction in local erosion and an efficient infiltration of the rainfall. The second activity which impacts on the movement and purity of surface water within this catchment are is the use of Banana Circles. Most houses in the village have access to water in the form of an external tap somewhere in the vicinity of the house (sometimes only 10 meters away, sometimes 300 meters away). None of these taps are supplied with any form of controlled drainage or sewerage system. The result is the people use the same tap for all purposes washing of dishes, laundry, bathing the entire family, watering animals and plants and, often as the toilet. The resulting contamination is not only a health problem to the families themselves, but especially during storms result in highly contaminated water being washed into the local river systems. The project includes the construction of twenty demonstration units in which this contaminated (with principally organic nutrients) water will be lead into small infiltration basins heavily planted with plants that have high water requirements and that have high nutrient requirements, such as bananas, paw paw, taros and yams. These areas will also be planted with vegetable species such as pumpkin, beans and okra, as well as bushy plants to offer further protection and privacy. The resulting structure will minimize the local health problems, supply some additional food crops and at the same time, minimize the local contamination from entering the larger-scale river system.

Brazil