Humans have historically chosen to develop their cities close to rivers due to the need for water and food security. In Brazil, water security represents a growing challenge, despite advances in the National Water Resources Management System. While municipalities are responsible for integrating the various public policies that impact urban rivers, such as the environment, basic sanitation, and urban planning, only states and the federal government, along with watershed committees, have a formal role in the National Water Resources Management System. The goal of this paper is to assess the Brazilian water governance system from the perspective of municipalities. The OECD water governance framework is applied to a medium-sized Brazilian municipality (c. 200,000 inhabitants), Itabuna, Bahia state, through perception-based and objective data. Studies dealing with water governance do not address this reality, despite representing more than 90% Brazilian municipalities and approximately half of the country’s population. Several water governance failures were identified, such as connections between administrative and political failures, which highlight the tragic consequences of hydrological issues in this region. Developing integrated water resources’ management, as fixed in national and state laws, depends on the effective participation of the municipality. This study discusses the importance of water governance at the municipal scale.

Despite the sectoral initiatives, the construction industry faces difficulties in incorporating effective environmental impact control systems in construction sites. Most of the instruments have been adopting a qualitative approach to environmental issues, with few cases of a quantitative approach. This article introduces a quantitative method for predicting environmental aspects and impacts during the construction of residential buildings, through the integration between environmental indicators and construction cost bases. The methodology was based on the analysis of the relationships among activities, aspects and environmental impacts considered in EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) for the development of the method and its mathematical representation. A case study was carried out to evaluate the method using the bill of quantities (BOQ) from two residential construction sites to measure their environmental aspects. The results suggest the usefulness of the method in the decision-making process on the allocation of control systems and, in some cases, recommending the execution of off-site services to reduce the impacts on the site’s neighborhood. Additionally, the method proved to be easy to apply to evaluate construction sites, as well as flexible to incorporate other activities, adapting to the demand of builders and municipalities to reduce the environmental impacts of construction sites.

RESUMO O presente artigo discute o papel dos municípios no Sistema Nacional de Gerenciamento de Recursos Hídricos (Singreh) do Brasil à luz da governança da água. Os municípios têm uma fraca participação nesse sistema e, em regra, não possuem uma política municipal de recursos hídricos. Apoiado em indicadores propostas pela Organização para a Cooperação e o Desenvolvimento Econômico (OCDE) e o Observatório das Águas do Brasil (OGA), identifica-se a “falha do município” na governança da água no Brasil. As atuais reformas legais, que incidem sobre os recursos hídricos, tendem a fragilizar ainda mais o papel dos municípios no Singreh. Evidenciam-se a urgência e a viabilidade de uma governança da água no âmbito dos municípios, como mecanismo para promover a gestão integrada e participativa dos recursos hídricos.

O artigo discute o impacto ambiental provocado pela geração crescente de resíduos da construção civil e sua disposição inadequada, analisando a legislação sobre o tema e as possibilidades de sua minimização na cidade do Salvador. Como contribuição, são sugeridas medidas para viabilizar a prevenção da geração de resíduos e é proposto um modelo simplificado de fluxo dos resíduos da construção civil em Salvador, para estimular a redução do desperdício nas obras e, conseqüentemente, menor custo na gestão da cidade e menor impacto ambiental. A partir dessa proposta se obteria uma redução da geração dos RCC de 30%, um desvio do aterro de inertes de 37,3% e, ainda, permaneceria seguindo, diretamente, para o aterro 32,7% dos resíduos totais, não absorvidos na reciclagem ou reutilização.