Technical Note 2 - Legal aspects of water reuse serving as a guideline for institutionalizing this practice in Brazil

Abstract

The water reuse is an important tool for the management and planning of water resources, which can be considered as an alternative source in the regional water matrices. However, despite the general evolution of regulations on water reuse in Brazil and worldwide, the country currently has an unsatisfactory legal basis for systematizing the practice. Considering the establishment of water quality standards for different types of reuse, Brazil has established at the federal level, the non-mandatory document of the Interáguas Program and, on a sub-federal level, mandatory documents in some states. The main raised aspects for the elaboration of a water reuse regulation are: the approach of reuse typologies in line with standards compatible with wastewater treatment technologies upon a wide engineering domain and the payment capacity of users in the national territory, licensing tools, microbiological risk assessment, establishment of a trust environment between the stakeholders, and, the elaboration of a visual identity for the equipment and vehicles related to reuse. This technical note presents guidelines and criteria for water reuse in Brazil, as well as the main milestones concerning the water reuse regulation in the world and in Brazil.