Hydroelectric Plants and Municipal Development: The Case of the Hydroelectric Plants of the Pelotas-Uruguay Complex

Hydropower plants are central projects to the Brazilian economic growth strategy, being a priority in Brazilian plans of energy offering expansion and important to meet the needs of the domestic and industrial energy supply in national scale. However, most of the adverse impacts associated with hydropower plants occur in local and regional scales, even if the Federal Government argues that these projects are conductive to the development of the region they affect. Considering that there is still no sufficient empirical evidence that hydropower plants induce such development in local and regional scales, this work seeks to verify the association between hydropower plants and development, taking into account the development performance of the municipalities affected by the plants in the cities of Itá, Barra Grande, Machadinho e Campos Novos, all located in the Pelotas and Uruguai rivers (in the frontier of the States of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul). These hydropower plants were installed from 2000 to 2010. In order to verify such association, the municipalities affected by these plants were compared to other municipalities located in the same watershed. 37 indicators regarding social, economic and environmental issues were statistically compared for the two groups of municipalities. The results evince that municipalities that host hydropower plant powerhouses show a more expressive growth of their economy, a phenomenon accompanied by increase in inequalities, child labour and sewage deposit. As a main conclusion, it was found that hydropower plants are associated with a process of municipalities’ economic growth that is not utilized to mitigate the increase of social-economic inequalities and environmental problems

Gestão Adaptativa na Etapa de Acompanhamento da Avaliação de Impacto Ambiental

O emprego de abordagens baseadas em Gestão Adaptativa representa uma oportunidade para o aperfeiçoamento da Etapa de Acompanhamento da Avaliação de Impacto, considerando as afinidades conceituais que existem entre suas estruturas. Na prática, há casos que demonstram o aumento da capacidade adaptativa baseado em aprendizado experiencial, o que requer arranjos de governança que sejam capazes de garantir o efetivo envolvimento das diversas partes da sociedade no próprio processo de tomada de decisão. De toda forma, a Gestão Adaptativa é uma abordagem promissora, o que não pode significar o desrespeito aos princípios da precaução e da prevenção que fundamentam os processos de Avaliação de Impacto Ambiental, servindo de mero paliativo para situações cujos impactos ambientais poderiam ter sido previstos e evitados. Approaches based on adaptive management are an opportunity to improve the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) follow-up, considering the conceptual affinities between their structures. Some cases demonstrate an increase in adaptive capacity, based on experiential learning, despite a lack of governance arrangements able to guarantee the effective involvement of different parts of society in the decision-making process. Finally, adaptive management is a promising approach for EIA follow-up, which does not mean abrogating the principles of precaution and prevention that underlie EIA processes, serving as a mere palliative for situations whose environmental impacts might have been predicted and prevented.&nbsp