Outline

1. Introduction: Climate change in SAB2. A new paradigm: participative and integrated

land and water management3. Scaling-up RWH through institutional and

political arrangements4. The Program of One Million Cisterns (P1MC)5. The Program One Piece of Land and Two

Types of Water (P1+2)6. Conclusion

SAB Semi-arid Brazil has 969,599 km2

1,133 municipalitiesand is inhabited by 21 million people 9 million of them living in the rural area.

Climate Change in SAB

Human induced climate change has been happening since the time of colonization. The indigenous population called the region Caatinga – Gray Forest.The Portuguese colonizers changed the land use patterns and spoke then of the Sertão – the Big Desert. Until recent years, the region was called the "drought stricken polygon".

The prevision for the end of this century is an increase of temperature from 2 to 4o C. More irregular rainfall will occur with longer droughts and more flood events. As a recompense for the higher evaporation of only an increase of 2º C of temperature, an augmentation of 32% of rainfall would be needed. Adding to the pressure of human land use activities (micro-climate change), the rest of the typical thorn bush vegetation “Caatinga” will further give place to a vegetation typical of arid regions or desertification “Sertão”.

A new paradigm: participative and integrated land and water management

When we speak about climate change, we have to ask: Why have the climate conditions changed from what they have always been? – We have burnt the hills, we have cut down the trees, we do a lot of farming in the wetlands and cleared the river margins. The rain comes from the hills (depending on the wind), the lakes and the trees (but where are the trees?). And we abandoned some traditions of water and land use and soil conservation.What can we learn from the Caatinga plants? They resolve their water needs with one large rainfall in the year and store the water in roots, trunks and leaves. They avoid unnecessary evaporation. The thorn bush vegetation of SAB with its plants and animals is perfectly adapted to these irregularities. Also for the people in the SAB, in spite of the unevenly distributed rainfall, it is possible to catch the rain when it falls, store it and have a reliable water source during the dry season, not only fordrinking purposes, but also for agriculture.

Rather than requiring radically new responses, adaptation to climate change reinforces the need to implement measures that already should be environmental or development priorities. Rural people, who learned and know how to “live in harmony with the semiarid climate, are ready to fight for rainwater catchment systems as well as for all the other aspects facilitating and enriching life in SAB. They are discovering how to resolve the water problem in SAB: it has to be managed in different ways, according to the available kinds of water supply (ground, surface, soil and rainwater).

Participative and integrated land and water management

a. Managing water for the environmentb. Providing drinking water for every

household c. Taking care of community water for

washing, bathing and for animalsd. Assuring blue and green water for

agriculturee. Supplying emergency water for drought

years

Scaling-up RWH through institutional and political arrangements

Community based programs of “Rainwater Catchment and Management” in the context of participative and integrated land and water management in the rural area of SAB:> P1MC – the Program One Million Cisterns for Drinking Water and > P1+2 – the Program One Piece of Land and Two Types of Water

The Program One Million Cisterns (P1MC)

ASA - the Network of NGOs of the Semi-Arid Brasil launched a campaign with the slogan ‘No Family without Safe Drinking Water’ and elaborated the program.This program is being executed by the civilian society in a decentralized manner (at the community, municipal, micro-region, state and regional levels). The program receives funding by governmental organizations and to a small extent from the private sector. The goal of the program is to supply safe and drought proof drinking water for 1 million rural households (five million people) until 2015.At the beginning of July 2009, more than 260,000 cisterns had been constructed.

River diversion:Concentration of water

The Program One Piece of Land and Two Types of Water (P1+2)

is another step in direction of sustainable development of SAB.Every rural family should own one piece of land (1), large enough to produce food and live in a sustainable way and two (2) types of water, one for human consumption and the other one for food production. Besides the use of green water conserving technologies such as contour tillage, vegetative soil protection and use of manure, other experiences of blue water management are carried out that provide water supply for agriculture such as cisterns for supplemental irrigation of vegetable gardens, for poultry raising and beekeeping, shallow wells, rock cisterns for water for livestock, subsurface dams, rainwater catchments diverted from roads. 1500 RW Catchment Systems were constructed in 2007 and 2008 by the P1+2, and the implementation of another 1500 systems is underway.

Example 1: Cisterns adapted for agriculture

Underground cisterns are promoted for multipurpose uses. The cisterns are cylindrical with a storage capacity of 52,000 liter. The water is harvested from road catchments or the sheet flow from 200m2 catchment areas constructed near to the cisterns. These tanks permit irrigation of small household vegetable beds (until 40 m2), which line the beds with PVC sheets 30 cm beneath the soil for avoiding water seepage.

Example 2: Rock cisterns called caxios (water case):

Are deep rectangular holes dug vertically into soft micaceous rock, which receive the rainwater from a nearby ground catchment area or a diverted small seasonal streamlet.The measurements are at least 3 m (width), 6 m (length) and 4 m (depth), or bigger.

Often there are dug two rock cisterns together, one for drinking water and the other for water for livestock.

Frequently a wooden fence protects the rock cistern.

Caxio

Caxio

Example 3: Sub-surface dams:

Are appropriate in crystalline subsoil, store rainwater runoff for a later application: a transversal barrier is dug below the ground surface in a shallow soil (normally 1 to 3 meter deep) of an intermittent streamlet toward the impervious subsoil.

Then an earth or rock fill dam is built with a PVC sheet on the downstream face to avoid seepage. When finished, runoff is stored in the upstream subsoil.

So it is possible to plant many types of vegetables, such as corn, rice, beans or fruit trees.

Additionally, a shallow well is usually dug to permit water removal for livestock or irrigation uses.

Sub-surface dams have guaranteed the food security of rural communities even in years of drought.

Sub-surface dam

Sub-surface dam

Sub-surface dam

Sub-surface dam

Sub-surface dam

Challenges: Bridging divides for water

Organized civic society x political will of governmental organizationsNGO Network: planning and implementationGovernmental organizations: planning and financingScaling-up x scaling-down

Challenges: Bridging divides for water

Different objectivesBureaucratic processesCompartmentsDiscontinuity (i.g. in election times)Different languagesMoney = power = manipulation

Conclusion:

Climate change preparedness and adaptation and even climate recovery should be a result of Integrated Land and Water Management and of “living in harmony with the semi-arid climate”. RWHM with P1MC and P1+2 is a community action in SAB to adapt to climate change.In the future, there will be a shift in water management and storage, passing from the surface (dams, river diversions) to the subsurface (cisterns, subsurface dams, conservation of soil humidity and aquifer recharge), increasing the efficient use of the irregular rainfall, where it falls.

Conclusion (cont.):

Education and awareness building must be a priority for the formation of social capital, qualification of labor and of experts in Integrated Land and Water Management. The bureaucratic process between the governmental donor organizations and the implementing NGOs could turn into a true public-NGO-partnership. The RWHM experiences in the SAB are influenced by the “Project 1-2-1”, developed in the 1990s in the Gansu Province of China. Therefore it would be important to share the RWHM experiences in the SAB and other parts of the world, especially under the challenge of climate change.

In his opening address at the 9th IRCSC (International RainwaterCatchment Systems Conference), held in Brazil in July 1999, Dr. A. Appan said:"The concept of rainwater catchment systems technology is as old as the mountains. The standard adage - as in all water supply schemes is - store water (in a tank/reservoir) during the rainy season so that you can use it when you need it most during the summer. In other words 'Save for the dry day!' The principles, methods of construction, usage and maintenance are all available. And, most important of all, there are very many financial models to suit developing and developed countries. What is most needed is the moral acceptance of the technology and the political will to implement the systems."

7th Brazilian Rainwater Catchment and Management Symposium“Rainwater Catchment and Management:

Progress and Challenges in a Changing Environment”September 28 to October 1st, 2009

CARUARU, Pernambuco State, Brazilwww.abcmac.org.br/7simposio