São Francisco river Integration Project, Eastern Axis: losses analysis and performance indicators

Abstract

ABSTRACT Water scarcity is an old problem in the brazilian Northeast semiarid region and limits the economic and social development of the region. To mitigate negative impacts of this situation, the National Integration Ministry elaborated the São Francisco River Integration Project (PISF). The State of Paraíba will benefit from this project through the East Axis and West Axis water transposition systems’ from the São Francisco river. The Paraíba riverbasin will receive the waters of the São Francisco river through the Eastern Axis, since the project foresees that, from the city of Monteiro-PB, the water will be transported through the bed of the Paraíba river. This type of transport will cause high water losses. The present work analyzes water distribution scenarios in terms of water losses, which were simulated with the Acquanet model. The first scenario simulates the current situation, without water transposition of PISF, and the other ones evaluate different ways of distributing the waters of the East Axis among the Paraíba river bed and different pipelines construction scenarios. The results have shown that the construction of pipelines will reduce water losses and increase social gain, through the increase of the benefited population.