The infrastructural dimension of landscape: a strategy for the \water crisis\ of Greater São Paulo

Author(s)

Ramón Stock Bonzi

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU/SBI)
• Defense date: 2019-11-12

Examining board members

Paulo Renato Mesquita Pellegrino; Maria de Assunçao Ribeiro Franco; Pedro Caetano Sanches Mancuso; José Guilherme Schützer; Luciana Rodrigues Fagnoni Costa Travassos

• Advisor: Paulo Renato Mesquita Pellegrino

Abstract

The \"water crisis\" that affected Greater São Paulo between 2014 and 2015 was largely debated, especially regarding the management of the water supply system and the influence of climatic anomalies. However, there is one aspect that has been neglected: the design of this urban infrastructure. The present research is based on the premise that the \"water crisis\" is also due to the inadequacy of the hegemonic urbanization model that historically disregarded the natural basis of the city and capitulated urban planning in the name of infrastructures engineering almost always on a large scale, centralized, monofunctional and designed to resist the forces of nature, rarely taking advantage of them. The main objective of this work is to evaluate the current metropolitan water supply system under the Green Infrastructure paradigm in order to verify a set of three hypotheses: the \"water crisis\" is better understood as a hydrological collapse caused by urbanization; the design of the metropolitan supply system contributed to the occurrence of the 2014-2015 episode; landscape-based solutions are capable of bringing significant improvements to the metropolitan supply system. To this end, a theoretical framework has been developed that demonstrates that the landscape has a fundamental infrastructure dimension for the survival and prosperity of human settlements, and are presented the international practices that prepare cities and urban infrastructures for climate change. Next, the urbanization of São Paulo in front of its biogeophysical base is analyzed, and each subsystem of supply (Cantareira, Alto Tietê, Guarapiranga, Cotia, Rio Claro, Rio Grande, Ribeirao da Estiva, Capivari and São Lourenço) is analyzed from the delimitation and characterization of the respective tributary river basins. In the final part of the research the weaknesses of the current water supply system are pointed out and proposed guidelines for its improvement. Adopting the compartmentalisation of relief as a method for the spatialisation of the Green Infrastructure landscape typologies, as Bonzi adapted the Environmental Zoning 9 developed by Schutzer from the classic tripartite geomorphological analysis of Ab\'Saber, the proposed guidelines are tested in four typical spatial situations (rural, peri-urban, precarious urbanization and densely populated area). We conclued that landscape is an analytical key that allows us to understand the inadequacy of the current supply system and urbanization in São Paulo. In addition, solutions based on the understanding that the landscape can perform infrastructural functions, as advocated by the Green Infrastructure, allow better harmonization between the human occupation and the natural processes of the natural base on which it is based, thus contributing to the reversal of the urban hydrological collapse and for the improvement of the metropolitan water supply system. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 16/08656-0 - Infrastructural dimension of landscape: a strategy for the water crisis in the Grande São Paulo
• Grantee: Ramón Stock Bonzi
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate