Integrated Water Resources Management of the Sao Francisco River Basin and Its Coastal Zone (GEF São Francisco)

The objective of the project is to strengthen the enabling environment for the implementation of the Strategic Action Program (SAP) to promote sustainable development in São Francisco basin and its coastal zone. The SAP identified priority actions to:

• (i) incorporate environmental variables into the development policies, plans and programs by fostering an integrated management vision of the basin, its natural resources and coastal zone, including the testing of an artificial flood from upstream dams to restore downstream floodplains;
• (ii) promote the establishment of the Basin Water Agency as the mechanism for regional articulation, coordination and public participation;
• (iii) implement programs, projects and actions that will prevent environmental degradation by alleviating poverty through sustainable economic development and stimulating the adoption of sustainable practices for managing natural resources through implementing the instruments of the National Policy for Water Resources (NPWR); and,
• (iv) facilitate the establishment of an integrated system of inter-sectoral resource planning and management for the São Francisco River Basin with respect to the delivery of contaminants from land-based sources to the coastal marine environment of the South West Atlantic Large Marine Ecosystem.

This system will implement and foster the implementation of the Basin Plan on a permanent basis as a logical and natural extension of the SAP and integral element of its operation. The implementation of the SAP will help ANA to operationalize and implement adequate institutional, technical, legal, and financial instruments, as well as prevention and remediation policies, for integrated river basin and its coastal zone management.