Governança e sustentabilidade hídrico-ambiental na UPGRH dos Afluentes do Alto São Francisco: do diagnóstico territorial ao desenvolvimento do ICSA e à proposição do Selo Carranca

Abstract

Water governance requires instruments capable of integrating territorial assessment, institutional capacity, environmental conservation, information production, and mechanisms for promoting improvements in public management. This thesis aimed to analyze hydroenvironmental sustainability in the Water Resources Planning and Management Unit of the Tributaries of the Upper São Francisco River (UPGRH SF1) through an investigative trajectory that began with the identification of weaknesses in regional water governance, advanced to the development of a composite index, and culminated in the proposal of a municipal certification system. The study adopted an applied, exploratory, descriptive, documentary, quantitative, and proposal-oriented approach and was organized into complementary studies. Initially, data on water-use permits and registrations of water uses considered insignificant were examined, revealing substantial growth in simplified water-use regularization, inconsistencies in selfreported information, and limitations in auditing and monitoring mechanisms. Subsequently, Payment for Environmental Services (PES) projects were analyzed, with emphasis on the participation of small-scale rural producers, the restoration of degraded areas, and the relevance of social mobilization in the UPGRH SF1. Based on these assessments, the Composite HydroEnvironmental Sustainability Index (ICSA) was developed, comprising 14 subindicators distributed across five dimensions: institutional management and governance; sanitation and pollution control; environmental conservation and restoration; water resources information and monitoring; and environmental education and mobilization. The index was applied to the 29 municipalities within the water resources management unit using official data, normalization on a scale from 0 to 100, statistical procedures, and geospatial analysis. The results revealed marked territorial heterogeneity and indicated that hydro-environmental performance depends on the convergence of infrastructure, planning, institutional capacity, information quality, environmental conservation, and social participation. Based on the ICSA, the Carranca Seal for Hydro-Environmental Sustainability was proposed as a certification system structured around progressive performance levels, technical criteria, information validation, institutional governance, monitoring, and periodic revalidation. It was concluded that integrating territorial assessment, composite indicators, and certification can enhance planning capacity, public policy prioritization, transparency, and the continuous improvement of water governance at the municipal and river-basin scales.