From hope to conflict

inequality in access to water by rural workers resettled by the transposition of the São Francisco river in the state of Pernambuco – Brazil.

Abstract

The transfer of the São Francisco River provides access to water for an estimated population of 12 million people in the semiarid region of northeastern Brazil. A portion of the population reached by this project is also potentially its beneficiary. We refer here to the farmers resettled in Rural Productive Villages, by the Basic Environmental Project, which aimed to resettle the farmers (owners or not) affected along the banks of the two transposition channels (North Axis and East Axis). Our study analyzes a complex socio-environmental phenomenon linked to a compensatory public policy focused on the resettlement of affected, expropriated, and potentially beneficiary populations of the transposition project in eight villages belonging to the State of Pernambuco. It is an analysis of the situation of resettled families, how these families have access to water, and, consequently, the economic and social reproduction of the population involved.