WATER REFUGEES: vulnerabilization and conflicts evolving access to water

This article presents an understanding of how the socio-environmental vulnerabilities of the populations displaced by the San Francisco River Diversion Project have turned them into water refugees. Three Rural Villages (VPR’s) are analyzed. The VPR Salão, located in Sertania/PE, and the VPR Lafayete, in Monteiro/PB, are in the East Canal. The third VPR is Irapuá I in the North Canal and is in the municipality of Piranhas/PB. These areas were affected by this project and had as one of the results the lack of access to potable water for human consume and production. This paper used the methodologies of bibliographical revision, group interviews with local people, and visits to the three VPRs. The authors conclude that the social vulnerabilization of those populations have various sources such as the deterritorialization that made them to loose social, cultural and environmental ties that are common in the rural areas and also the lack of access to drinking water and water for agricultural production, which is a responsibility of the government to provide.

Social-environmental vulnerabilization; Water conflicts; Water refugees; São Francisco River Diversion Project; Deterritorialization