Introduction

Fortaleza is located in Brazil’s state of Ceará, and is also the capital and economic hub of the state. It is situated in the larger Northeastern Region of Brazil which is a semi-arid region that experiences seasonal rains and droughts.

Fortaleza is the 5th largest Brazilian capital and is also the most densely populated with nearly 2.7 million inhabitants and 7,786 residents per square kilometer (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica / Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). In Brazil, water policy is mandated federally through the National Water Agency, known as ANA (Agência Nacional de Água). States are then given control over administering their own water utility or outsourcing to private companies. Ceará has a state-wide public water agency known as CAGECE (Companhia de Água e Esgoto do Ceará) which covers Fortaleza, as well as the vast majority of state municipalities. CAGECE has historically invested in the creation of reservoirs and dams in the interior of the state that brings water through canals and pumps to Fortaleza and the greater metropolitan region.

When the water arrives in the city it is treated in two water treatment plants – the principal Gaviao Plant and the secondary Oeste Plant.

Approximately 99% of city residents receive reliable water services, but only 60% of the city has access to basic sanitation services, also provided by CAGECE (CAGECE 2019). This 40% discrepancy in basic sanitation accounts for approximately 1,620,000 residents without adequate sewage services, which poses health risks for people living in informal areas of the city and water resources such as rivers, groundwater, and eventually the ocean. Finding a solution that bridges the service gap between water and sewage  will be the main focus in finding a comprehensive water policy and planning solution for the city of Fortaleza.

Water Policy: Conserve Where Access to Water is Adequate

While the main focus of this solution aims to solve problems with basic sanitation, it is also important to think about the other water issues that play a large role in Fortaleza: drought. Wealthier areas of the city, primarily located in the North along Praia de Iracema, consume high levels of water.

In a diagnostic report about water infrastructure produced by the city, water managers reported that on days where water demand was at its highest, water plants were forced to pump water at its maximum levels, often depleting reserves (Plano Municipal  de Saneamento Básico do Município de Fortaleza). In an area where drought is common (the most recent drought lasted from 2012-2017), high levels of water consumption and potential mismanagement can lead to dangerous situations (Broadle, 2017). The city expanded from 80,000 in the 1920s, when the first sewage and water lines were installed in the city, to 2.86 million today (Garmany, 2011).  The city is still responding to historic patterns of disinvestment in its poorer communities when, during the 1940s and 60s, planners made little effort to extend major development initiatives to the favela settlements where growth was occurring most rapidly (Garmany, 2011))  Given the city’s arid climate,  its location in a semi-arid and socio-economically vulnerable region, and the uneven development patterns, water conservation policies will be one approach in securing adequate water for all city residents. 

CAGECE has already begun implementing conservation measures through their efficiency tax beginning in 2015. Residents in the metropolitan region of Fortaleza who do not reduce consumption by 20% of the recommended amount are charged a tax on their water bill (CAGECE Tariff Structure). This tax alone has brought in $R62.4 million reais in the year 2019 and within the first year of operation helped reduce consumption by a total of 17.7% (Freire and Nunes, 2017).  Along with this tax, we also propose a green building code, similar to California’s Green Building Standards Code. California has similar arid climates and has found success in implementing green codes that limit water inefficient landscaping, implement high efficiency appliances such as faucets, showerheads, and other household appliances, and utilize on site non-potable water reuse technology. This green building code would be aimed at reducing water overuse in large residential, commercial, and institutional facilities that have green spaces over 2,500 sq ft. Large multi-family residences would also be the target of a second conservation policy: private well regulation. In 2007, 47% of wells, legal or illegal, in the state were private, 39% of which were on residential properties (Araujo da Silva, 2007). The illegal or unregulated use of wells and extraction of groundwater can lead to lower water levels in the city’s rivers, consumption of contaminated water, and can lead to ground subsidence or sinking. The city recently passed a law that requires registration of private wells found in multi-family and large scale commercial properties. Once the well is registered through CAGECE, users will be charged a very small fee (R$ 0,00019, or $0.0000037 USD) per liter issued by the state’s department of hydrologic resources (Dairio do Nordeste, 2019). Implementing new green building codes, along with the city’s water efficiency tax and well regulation measures, will help manage both treated water and groundwater in a more sustainable and equitable manner.

Connecting the City’s Vulnerable to Basic Sanitation

Even as Brazil worked to greatly improve water and sanitation services throughout the country in the 1980s, urban favelas have remained largely disconnected. Instead of clean water piped directly to their homes, favela residents often pay ten times the legal rate from water pirates who tap illegally into the main systems. And instead of sewage being piped safely away for sanitary treatment, wastewater flows down streets into rivers, or is dumped into natural drainage channels to feed polluted streams and lagoons. The common assertion is that solutions for collecting (and, ultimately, treating) wastewater are often only searched for after housing is completed. In favelas, dwellings are often constructed without any land rights, which complicates matters considerably (Depies, 2015). How public utilities deal with service provision in these areas varies greatly: whereas in São Paulo the city seems to hold the view that it is basically impossible to provide conventional wastewater services there, in Salvador they are searching for unconventional solutions. Great efforts are being made worldwide to provide access to improved sanitation for all by 2030, which is one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) established by the United Nations. In Brazil, 30.2% of the population lack access to improved sanitation. If all promised government investments are made as planned, access to centralized conventional systems and septic tanks are projected to increase to 92% by year 2033 (Virgolim, 2017). As much of an improvement as this is for Brazilian standards, it still fails in achieving the global SDG target 6.2 of access for all. While disparate community actions in Fortaleza have led to the implementation of some bold steps forward on sustainable wastewater issues, in spaces where informality, poverty, and environmental and public health risks are most prevalent, like Fortaleza’s favelas, we advocate for a low-cost, decentralized approach to bridging the sanitation gap.

A decentralized sanitation system is usually simple, small, easy to operate and maintain locally, low-cost and suitable for a household or a small community. It is composed of collection, treatment and disposal/reuse of wastewater, but with different technologies than a centralized system. The treatment is usually on-site and might enable the recovery of water resources (Nelson, 2005).

Concern about the high cost of conventional sewerage has prompted attempts at developing lower-cost alternatives in various parts of the world. Such attempts usually focus on those elements in sewerage systems that influence cost the most. Among such key cost-determining factors are: the average diameter and depth of sewers; average slope; the number and depths of manholes; and such other factors as total sewer length, population density, set-up costs, and excavation in rock (Bakalian, 1991). Consequently, sewer cost-reducing measures have invariably been directed at modifying one or more of these cost-determining factors. The simplified sewerage system was first developed in Brazil. It is the outcome of changes in several design parameters, including the standards listed above. The key impetus for its development was the realization that the application of conventional design standards was making it difficult to expand coverage to middle- and lower-income communities.

The basic idea of a simplified sewerage system is that households are to be grouped into a neighborhood unit, also called a “condominium” (this system is also known as a “condominial” sewerage system). This condominium works in a similar way to how an apartment building does. Instead of every house having their own unique sewerage system, this unit of houses reduces the amount of pipe length in about half because the public network does not need to run through every plot of land or be present on every street. A major convenience of condominial branches is that the sewer system connections can be in the most convenient part of the block (unit). This design also permits the networks to be adapted to the local topographic conditions and soil patterns (de Toledo Sobrinho, 2018).

The figure above illustrates the three models of simplified sewerage systems and places it side-by-side to the conventional system. From the figure it is possible to see that the length of pipes is much shorter for the simplified models and can also be smaller in diameter.

A new sewerage system is fully effective only when it includes sewerage treatment. A sewerage system without treatment merely transfers the sewage from one area to another, contributing only marginally to the general sanitary conditions of a city—health risks and environmental harm remain. With treatment included, sewerage systems will actually reduce the level of disease-causing microorganisms and limit the discharge of organic matter to levels the particular environment can handle. Recently a number of low-cost technological options for sewerage treatment have been implemented in Fortaleza, such as communal septic tanks and up to six waste stabilization ponds distributed across the city (da Silva, 2009). Communal septic tanks are often prone to leakages and limited by stringent siting requirements, and waste stabilization ponds require a significant amount of land that make them a non-viable solution for dense urban informal communities. For these reasons, we recommend making use of new technologies that prioritize place-based, environmentally friendly treatment techniques while taking up as small of a physical footprint as possible. The onsite, natural wastewater treatment facility options currently produced by Organica Water provide some inspirational examples to replicate (Organica Water). Small and decentralized wastewater treatment also presents unique opportunities for reuse. The important characteristic that distinguishes this type of wastewater management from larger systems is that there is a much greater potential for the treated wastewater to be generated closer to the potential reuse sites. With currently available technology, the capability exists to produce wastewater at a quality that is appropriate for a specific type of non-potable reuse, ranging from irrigation of low-value crops to toilet flushing. By utilizing reclaimed water for these purposes, a community can save significantly on potable water in the first year alone. As water supply rates in the city follow the general trend across the country and continue to increase, these savings will only continue to grow in following years. This reuse also reduces the burden on local water supply from aquifers or surface supplies, providing independence from droughts and other local weather impacts.

Conclusion

In a semi-arid region such as Northeast Brazil, where climatic conditions combined with inadequate supply systems will only exacerbate the challenges that arise from a decrease in the availability of water and growth in demand, we are likely to continue to observe serious water supply problems and conflict amongst its competing users. This competition is complicated even further when social disenfranchisement amongst one group of users, like the urban poor, leads to severe forms of disconnect from basic water and sanitation services. The complex nature of these issues requires both quantitative and qualitative approaches if solutions are to be developed in the next 10-20 years. 

While there are a vast array of water related issues in Fortaleza, as can be seen in the concept map, our approach aims to tackle the interconnected issue of inequity in access to service. Wealthy neighborhoods have better access to basic sanitation and water, but over-reliance on pumped water has put a strain on the city’s system. Poorer, often informal neighborhoods, still lack access to wastewater management, even as the city boasts a nearly 100% water line connectivity rate. With this inequity in mind, we propose to enforce conservation measures for areas that may be pushing the system to the limit while advocating for basic services in underserved areas. We believe this two-pronged approach will allow infrastructure dollars to be collected or recouped from the city’s new water conservation measures which can then be invested into expanding basic sanitation services to informal communities in the form of decentralized wastewater management plants, and eventually, complete grid access (the city has a plan to expand formal infrastructure to all residents by 2040). Water conservation, wastewater management and reuse, and the future formal connection of all households to sewer, water, and engineered drainage, will better equip the city for the potential side effects of climate change, whether that be longer lasting droughts or sea level rise.

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