This article analyzes the meanings and functions of the idea of risk among works produced in the last decade in Brazil concerning the problematic of the management of water. The analysis was done taking into account a sample of scientific papers. Following this methodology, we found out the diffusiveness, polysemic and hardly formalized character of the risk notion in the majority of the analyzed texts, and the predominance of epistemological objectivist perspectives which not approach the sociopolitical and cultural dimensions in the management of hydric sources.
Management of water; risk; hydric resources
