Water urgency: Urban intervention in watershed areas

Abstract

The relation between urban and environmental policies translate into the challenge of formulating answers to the urban pressure versus the environmental preservation. In watershed areas of Sao Paulo Metropolitan Area, the dimension of these challenges is particularly significant, mainly due to the clash between environmental and urban policies, which are faced with spontaneous and precarious occupation processes in protected areas. This article sets the institutionalization panorama of public policies – urban and environmental - in São Bernardo do Campo, Billings sub-basin, emphasizing on the implementation of urban planning tools that integrate housing and environment. One can conclude that the challenges to recover watershed areas go beyond the imposition of legal landmarks. They primordially depend on innovative intervention strategies that involve civil society and may signal a real transformation to the reality faced by protected drainage basins.