Desenvolvimento de indicadores de percepção ambiental como suporte à valoração do serviço de regulação do fluxo hidrológico prestado por unidades de conservação

Abstract

The economic valuation process contributes for environmental planning, because based on the economic valuation it is possible to adopt specific policies for environmental protection. In this scenario, there was a need to estimate and valuate the service of regulating the hydrological flow of Alto do Sapucaí sub-basin, located between Minas Gerais and São Paulo states. With 1.064 km2, which represents 12% of total drainage area for the Rio Sapucaí basin, the Alto do Sapucaí sub-basin houses ten Protected Areas (PA), with juxtaposition and overlap. The study range was the districts of Delfim Moreira, Campos do Jordão, Itajubá, Piranguçu, São Bento do Sapucaí and Wenceslau Braz. The service of regulating the hydrological flow has its importance on the region due to topographical profile and a wide history of floods, which affects the districts in a variety of ways. This way, the influence of existent PAs over the hydrologic flow regulation was modeled, showing that existence of PAs prevents, on average, 24% of the increase on surface runoff during rainy season and 12% of the decrease on dry season. Based on this result a valuation and environmental perception interview was performed. The Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) resulted in a monthly Willingness to Pay (WTP) of R$ 6.89 per inhabitant and an economic value for the service of regulating the hydrological flow of R$ 13,617,907.00 per year. The analysis of the environmental perception data indicated that factors such as income, education and gender have statistical significance related with the declared WTP, but that elements of belief and perception about precipitation, runoff and floods, are able to explain the deviation of the declared WTP, better predicting the relatively outside the average WTP, making it possible to create an WTP – Environmental Perception indicator which is composed of socioeconomic, belief and perception variables about the valued environmental service.