Non-scalability in water supply systems on Santa Catarina Island

Abstract

Water supply in Brazil is the responsibility of municipalities, but it is state-owned companies that centralize the majority of concessionary sanitation services. Residential areas not connected, or partially connected to such services, depend on individual solutions, or on alternative collective water supply systems, such as those observed in Florianópolis (Santa Catarina, Brazil). These are initiatives managed by residents’ associations or private companies, connecting homes to supply infrastructures and local water sources. Such alternative water supply networks occur in friction with the expansion of other infrastructures such as sanitation, transport, energy, civil construction and with the wide network of water supply subsystems of the concessionary state company, in the process of expansion and segregation of urban land. We analyze aspects of non-scalability in the process of translating water from springs as a resource for supply, into raw water captured, water treated with sanitary standards, water distributed or stored for consumption demand, water consumed and water served, when returned to watersheds. We reflect on the collective practices of such alternative systems of caring for water, repair water and planting water, which reveal knowledge of the water dynamics of landscapes of hills, lakes, waterfalls and coastal plains, distributed through their hoses, pipes, nozzles, water meters, water tanks, spreadsheets and memories.