O acesso ao saneamento urbano: os desafios da universalização no abastecimento de água e esgotamento sanitário. um estudo de caso em Manaus - Am

Abstract

The search for universal access to the water supply and sewage system (SAE) is one of the great challenges of the capital of the State of Amazonas. In this research carried out a wide review of the SAE literature, SAE structure was presented in the city of Manaus, through a historical survey, which began in the late 1800s. The study has a descriptive characteristic with a qualitative approach. It was developed through the analysis of the historical series of the national sanitation system (SNIS), the activity reports of the ARSAM, analyzes the goals of the SAE concession contract in Manaus and the ranking Which included, among other indicators, infrastructure and other indicators such as extension of the water network, quantity of total water connections, urban population served with water supply, extension of the sewage network, urban population served with sanitary sewage, and investments In water and sewage from the year 2000 to 2015. The research showed the fragility of the systems and it was verified that the extension of the sewage network is much inferior to the extension of the supply network. There is a discrepancy between the ARSAM data in relation to the data obtained in the SNIS. The quantitative data provided by ARSAM in its activity reports do not include data from PROURBIS. Data from the SNIS (provided by Manaus Ambiental) do not include data from PROSAMIM and PROURBIS, and it is not clear what percentage of urban water supply and sewage service in Manaus is. It is considered that the challenges faced by the city to increase access to the sewage system run counter to issues that go beyond the policy or the private management of the system. They also include economic aspects, the inability of government investment in infrastructure works and the service provider to prioritize investments in only one of the services, also due to the difficulty of paying for services by users. Regarding the social aspects, it was observed that there is no clear policy by the municipal government to ensure that all people have access to SAE, even those that do not have the resources to pay. As for cultural aspects, the population became accustomed to not wanting to officially connect to both water and sewage networks as a result of the tariffs and fees imposed, using the "cats" and this in turn leads to losses in distribution and water quality. Finally, the infrastructure works of the city are carried out according to the availability of funds and the politics of each entity and the transfer of works from the State to the Municipality and from the service provider is a time consuming and bureaucratic process, delaying the administration of these works. Manaus occupies the 97th position among the 100 largest Brazilian cities in the ranking of sanitation and despite the advances, the city will have difficulties to universalize the services and will not reach the universalization of sanitary sewage in 2033 as exposed in the national plan of basic sanitation