Environmental Justice: Lessons from the Water Crisis in Brasília, Brazil

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the repercussions of water rationing in Brasília on the theory of environmental justice based on the population's perception of the 2017/2018 water crisis. Quantitative research applied the statistical technique of variance analysis. The results show that the distance from the city center, income, and education of the population in the Brazilian capital were important aspects of environmental injustice, in addition to identifying the central role of the state in this process. The traditional and centralized model of state–private water management produced and reproduced environmental injustice through institutional violence and water alienation. Although denounced and contested in light of its partiality in interpreting and addressing the water crisis, the centralized management of water resources, even when not privatized, tends to gain strength in crises whose causes and unequal distribution of water and its costs were systematically hidden.