The hydropower plants represent an important alternative to the Brazilian energetic context, due to the huge spatial availability of hydropower potential, although they are a controversy in the Brazilian energy sector, because yours significant environmental degradation. In this context, this paper analyzes the history and trends of spatial planning of hydropower plants in Brazil, based on the relationship between the hydropower potential and the land use regulation. Until the 1970s, the implementation of dams occurred by low land use regulations as the Balbina and Tucuruí hydropower plants, which also induced an important environmental crisis in the sector and the creation of the Brazilian Environmental Policy Act in 1981. The 1980s and 1990s are characterized by a weak spatial planning of hydropower plants. In the 2000s, motivated by a favorable international economic context for infrastructure investment, the Federal Government recovered your planning capacity. As the result, the exploitation of hydropower potential increased, especially in the Amazon region. However, the mechanisms of land use regulation increased too, especially in high social and environmental sensibility areas, such as the Amazon. Nevertheless, this region still presents the largest available hydropower potential, representing the hydropower frontier of the 2010s.
Hydropower plants; Environmental impact assessment; Environmental licensing; Environmental planning and management
