Strategic environmental assessment as an instrument for the integrated man-agement of water resources: a case study of São José dos Dourados Basin plan and the municipal master plan of Ilha Solteira, SP

Abstract

The planning of water resources is sustainable through the articulation between the River Basin Plans and other Policies, Plans and Programs that relate to water resources, such as the Municipal Master Plans. In this sense, the objective of this work was to evaluate the contributions of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for the elaboration of Plans of Hydrographic Basins in its relationship with Municipal Director Plans, having as object of study the São José dos Dourados Basin and the Municipal Master Plan of Ilha Solteira, in the state of São Paulo. The methodology consisted of the documentary analysis of the Basin Plan of the Water Resources Management Unit 18 and the Municipal Master Plan in question, with a view to identifying the synergies and conflicts between the two in the management of water resources and verifying the feasibility of integration through the SEA. From this analysis, the convergences and incompatibilities between the two Plans were identified and, with these results, the possibility was raised of the SEA to assist in the elaboration of common objectives, diagnoses and prognoses between both Plans, assertively inferred in this sense, since one of the objectives of SEA is the relationship between instruments of environmental planning. At the moment of identifying the best alternatives to achieve an improvement in water management, the diagnosis contained in the Basin Plan would ensure that the decision-making in the Master Plans considered the municipality's contribution of land use and occupation public police that considered impacts on water resources. It can be concluded, in this sense, that SEA allows a convergence between the objectives, diagnosis and goals between Basin Plans and Municipal Master Plans.