A proposal of indicators for sustainable development in the management of river basins

Water, a renewable natural resource that is indispensable both to human life and to economic processes, has had its hydrological cycle threatened by pollution and contamination of hydrological resources. In Brazil, in 1997, Law 9.433 established the river basin as the unit for territorial planning and management of water resources. The proposal presented in this paper has an integrating focus, aiming at pointing out indicators for the sustainable development of river basins. The indicators are analyzed through social, environmental, economic and political-institutional frameworks, supported by internationally accepted methodologies. The implementation of this kind of project requires a large and reliable data set. Thus, we propose gradual implementation of sustainable development diagnosis in the river basins. To begin this process, we selected three indicators-public water supply, public sewerage and municipal trash collection. The values obtained for these indicators were compared with those of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which establish 50% reduction in them by 2015. The indicators were applied to the Guanabara Bay Watershed (GBW) in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as a case study.