TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF WATER AVAILABILITY IN THE STATES BENEFITED BY THE TRANSPOSITION OF THE SÃO FRANCISCO RIVER

Abstract

The São Francisco River Integration Project was designed to reduce the impacts of droughts in the states of Brazilian semiarid. The article performs a temporal analysis of the water availability in the four PISF water receiving states, through the cross-tabulation of data referring to the water surface and the annual precipitation of the states in the period from 1985 to 2017. To identify the correlation between these two parameters and inferences that can be made from the results in the 33 years of analysis. The methodology consists in determining the correlation between the areas classified as water surface by the MapBiomas project and rainfall obtained by satellite. Water recurrence data from the Global Water Surface product are also used to validate the discussion about water availability. The results point to the multiannual drought that occurred since 2012 and the consequent loss of water surface of the states, besides identifying an increase of correlation in the states of Paraíba, Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte from the 90s. The results  highlight the water management fragility of the states, and shows that the precipitation is not enough for the current demands.