# Grounded perspectives on water infrastructures and drought imaginaries in the semi-arid Northeast of Brazil

Veronica Mitroi, Daniela Michelle Encamilla Henriquez, Laudemira Silva Rabelo, Isabelle Tritsch, Francisco das Chagas Vasconcelos Júnior, Marcel Kuper, Eduardo Sávio P.R. Martins

► To cite this version:

Veronica Mitroi, Daniela Michelle Encamilla Henriquez, Laudemira Silva Rabelo, Isabelle Tritsch, Francisco das Chagas Vasconcelos Júnior, et al.. Grounded perspectives on water infrastructures and drought imaginaries in the semi-arid Northeast of Brazil. Journal of Hydrology, 2025, 662, pp.133894. 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.133894. hal-05166664

HAL Id: hal-05166664

https://hal.science/hal-05166664v1

Submitted on 8 Aug 2025

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research papers

# Grounded perspectives on water infrastructures and drought imaginaries in the semi-arid Northeast of Brazil

Veronica Mitroi<sup>a, *, †</sup>, Daniela Michelle Encamilla Henriquez<sup>a</sup>, Laudemira Silva Rabelo<sup>b, †</sup>, Isabelle Tritsch<sup>a, †</sup>, Francisco das Chagas Vasconcelos Júnior<sup>b</sup>, Marcel Kuper<sup>a, †</sup>, Eduardo Sávio P.R. Martins<sup>b</sup>

## ARTICLE INFO

This manuscript was handled by Okke Bate-
laan, Editor-in-Chief

Keywords:

Paradigms of drought management

Water infrastructures

Northeast Brazil

Socio-hydrological imaginaries

Ceará

Water ontologies

## ABSTRACT

This paper discusses how water infrastructure became central to drought management in the state of Ceará in Brazil's Northeast region, and how this status has been maintained over the decades. It emphasizes the importance of social imaginaries and institutional arrangements in defining water ontologies and developing subjectivities that play in the moralization of water use and rights in crisis contexts. Our empirically grounded, interdisciplinary approach demonstrates how the co-evolution of infrastructure and institutional arrangements contributes to the maintenance of the infrastructure's centrality in drought management, primarily to increase water availability. Consequently, despite the establishment of participatory bodies and an alternative approach to manage droughts in rural communities, large-scale water infrastructure remains a key pillar in preparing for future droughts. While these infrastructures provide the state with some 'control capacities' over the water resources, they also have considerable uncontrolled and intertwined territorial effects. We argue that further interdisciplinary research is required to understand the complex role of infrastructures and imaginaries in water management.

## 1. Introduction

Drought and water scarcity are critical problems worldwide (Kellner, 2021) related to climate and hydrological variability, and exacerbated by unsustainable development trajectories (Sultana, 2023), and more recently, by climate change (Greve et al., 2028; Wheater and Gober, 2015). Water scarcity results in social inequalities in accessing safe and necessary water (Mehta, 2001) in contexts of environmental crises. Ideas about what is the ‘good water management’ that can deal with water scarcity problems caused by drought are evolving over time (Pahl-Wostl, 2002), by incorporating new knowledge, water infrastructures, social imaginaries and political agendas. Nonetheless, the main paradigm addressing the drought problem still tends to be dominated by the engineering paradigm, operating as an essentialist, universal and technologist concept of modern water (Linton, 2010 2007; Joy et al., 2014) and oriented through large-scale infrastructure projects, including big dams, wells and water transfers. This high-modernism’s vision (Scott, 1998) is being challenged and increasingly contested by both academic and

social actors, such as civil society organizations, in many parts of the world. These actors denounce the inefficacy of such paradigms to fight drought and its disastrous social and ecological consequences (Swatuk and Qader, 2023), caused by the ignorance of local contextual realities and local experience dealing with water scarcity (Blöschl et al., 2016).

The socio-hydrology field is frequently used for informing and assessing water management policies, hydric resilience and supply-demand imbalances (Ross and Chang, 2020), based on data series, as well as on conceptual and quantified models to represent complex water-society interactions (Di Baldassarre et al., 2018; Kumar et al., 2020; Kellner, 2021). However, since the inaugural article by Sivapalan et al. (2012), socio-hydrology studies have become more critical since they started to highlight unexpected feedback loops, for instance the “reservoir effect” producing “supply-demand cycles” that indirectly increase water demand and consumption, and in the end, fail to solve the problem of water scarcity (Di Baldassarre et al., 2019). In order to better consider the rarely quantified social determinants of these “supply-demand cycles”, in recent publications in the field, Di Baldassare

<footnote><sup>a</sup> CIRAD - French Agricultural Research and International Cooperation Organization, France</footnote>

<footnote><sup>b</sup> FUNCEME - Foundation Cearense for Meteorology and Water Resources, Brazil</footnote>

<footnote>* Corresponding author.</footnote>

<footnote>E-mail address: veronica.mitroi@cirad.fr (V. Mitroi).</footnote>
openly calls for more interdisciplinary collaboration, combining hy-
drological data with critical geography contributions (Di Baldassarre
et al., 2018; Rusca and Di Baldassarre, 2019).

There is indeed a salient tradition in the field of political ecology to
analyze the complex role of hydric infrastructure in water policies
(Boelens et al., 2019; Sultana, 2023; Sultana & Loftus, 2011), mainly by
highlighting their impact on hydrosocial territories (Swyngedouw,
2004; Boelens et al., 2019). From this perspective, infrastructures are
one of the main instruments used to “abstract” water and transform it
into a resource and an object of political and economic control (Linton,
2022). Nevertheless, although water infrastructures are very powerful
tools for controlling water flows and distributing benefits and risks, they
are supported by social imaginaries about their contribution to more
efficient water management. In political ecology literature, water
imaginaries are considered both, as shared beliefs about how the world
works, and as factors that influence the way the world works (Flaminio
and Reynard, 2023; Kuper et al., 2023). In other words, imaginaries are
not only subjective representations of reality; they are also fully
embedded in practices and ways of resolving problems, as well as in the
materiality of the world. In the field of drought management, for
example, drought imaginaries become ‘cemented’ into hydraulic in-
frastructures, thereby changing water ontologies and materiality. As
Jamie Linton put it, water imaginaries are part of what water is (Linton,
2022). Once in place, water infrastructures influence the definition of
management rules and the moralization of social practices and actors
(Shah and Boelens, 2021), that will be judged depending on their
interaction with the infrastructures (e.g. who has the right to use it and
how). Furthermore, as they are contested, water infrastructures and the
associated imaginaries play a role in shaping local resistance (Hommes
et al., 2022) and in defining alternative socio-hydrological narratives
and landscapes (Scoones et al., 2019). In the critical political ecology
field (Shah and Boelens, 2021; Hommes et al., 2022), water imaginaries
are analyzed as an important dimension of power relations around water
resources, as dominant imaginaries often conflict or try to undermine
alternative or counter-imaginaries (Kuper et al., 2023).

Despite these significant contributions to the understanding of the
social dimensions and complex effects of infrastructures on water
management, building new infrastructures is still the main solution in
most public policies that deal with problems caused by drought. None-
theless, the centrality of such infrastructures is rarely addressed in
grounded interdisciplinary studies that analyze the entangled long-term
effects of infrastructures on water scarcity in semi-arid regions and in
the specific context of drought. This article shows that interdisciplinary
approaches combining hydro-climatic data, sociological analysis of
water stakeholders, and political ecology approach is a valuable way to
develop a more grounded point of view of the role played by in-
frastructures in reshaping and translocating the drought problem
through socio-hydrological territories. Complemented with a long-term
perspective, this interdisciplinary analysis shows that water control
technologies are not only “technical solutions” to water scarcity, but are
also embedded with pre-existing ideologies, power relationships, mo-
ralities and social imaginaries.

The grounded approach<fnref n="1" /> on water infrastructure is based on an
analysis of the drought policies in the Northeast region of Brazil, more
specifically in Ceará State. Ceará is an emblematic case regarding both
dramatically severe and recurrent droughts, and the prominent role of

water infrastructures, particularly reservoirs, as a solution to the water
scarcity problem. First, we discuss the persistence and centrality of in-
frastructures in the definition of drought policies over the last century
(known as the “*combate a seca*” – “Fighting drought” paradigm). Second,
we show a the emerging of a new paradigm of “social technologies”
(known as “*convivência com o semiárido*” – “Living with semi-arid”
paradigm) have contributed to the development of alternative imagi-
naries about the role of water infrastructures from a local perspective,
but finally have led to accumulation of small unplanned infrastructures
to access water in rural communities. Finally, we show that the agency
and the efficacy of various large and small infrastructures developed in
these two perspectives by different actors are closely interrelated, in
complementary or concurrent ways, that continually challenge the
existing water management system. We conclude by showing that, in
Ceará case, despite the introduction of participatory water management
bodies and the development of an alternative paradigm for dealing the
droughts, the construction of new water control infrastructures is still
the paramount solution to deal with water scarcity in the future,
showing the persistence of drought technocratic imaginaries.

## 2. Case study and research approach

2.1. *Description of the case study*

Sadly, the Northeast region of Brazil is famous for its dramatic droughts (secas in Portuguese) that cause social and economic crises, migration, and starvation (Villa, 2000). Since the first recorded drought in 1553, a total of 64 drought events have been recorded (Lima and Magalhães, 2018). Water scarcity in the Northeast is usually attributed to natural factors, such as: low rainfall (mean annual range between 500 and 900 mm), a short well-defined rainy season (from January to May) during which 80 % of annual precipitation occurs, very irregularly distributed rainfall over time (regular inter-annual droughts or strong individual rainfall events that can reach 150 mm/day) and geographically uneven rainfall distribution. Since the early 1900s, when official monitoring of rainfall began, droughts have been quantified in terms of annual standard deviations below the average, as well as in terms of prolonged multi-year periods of low rainfall that last at least 4 years [31]. The region where these extreme climatic events are mainly concentrated is known as the “Semi-arid” region (Fig. 1), described as a “calamitous region” that necessitates specific national investments in public works and emergency actions against droughts [32].

Ceará State, which is located in the semiarid area, is an emblematic case of drought management from multiple perspectives. Climatologically, except for the coastal area, the entire state is part of the Polígono da Seca. Hydrologically, Ceará has no permanent rivers. Technically, it boasts the highest density of dams of all sizes in the region. Politically, Ceará formulated the first law on participatory water management in Brazil in the 1990s. Additionally, in terms of knowledge production, Ceará has developed a complex water monitoring and drought management system. Ceará’s exceptional status in the Northeast context is characterized by both the material reality of drought and water scarcity and the centrality of infrastructures as a form of drought mitigation. This is coupled with an expert system of knowledge production created for the purpose of water allocation.

2.2. *Research approach*

The research framework combines: (i) a documentary analysis of water management politics, (ii) hydrological data and (iii) sociological in-depth interviews with various stakeholders involved in the water governance process, as well as with local actors. The analysis of water policies is relied on a diverse range of documents, including academic literature, grey literature, planning and policy documents related to water management in the Northeast region, archives, legal and other official texts, and regulations. These texts were organized

<footnote n="1">¹ Following the article of Zwarteveen M. et al. (2022), we consider the grounded perspective as an empirical and well-informed case study that can reveal conflicts of interest, the social justice dimension, and the multiple ways of knowing, understanding, and dealing with water-related problems. In socio-hydrology, which often reduces social components to quantitative variables such as water consumption and needs, it is extremely important to consider the specific contexts in which water-society relations are continuously co-constructed.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 1.** The Semiarid region and Ceará State in Brazil. Legend: The maps were made with layers of South America (the World Bank, 2020), States of Brazil and the Northeast (ANA, 2013), border of the semi-arid region (LAPIS – SUDENE, 2021), Ceará (Funceme, 2023).</figcaption></figure>

chronologically to identify the evolution of water imaginaries, as described in the grey literature of the expertise field and civil society, which describes the problems related to water, especially drought, and possible solutions. We are also analyzing how these discourses on drought were, or were not, translated into policy and planning documents, and how the 'problem' was reformulated in terms of action plans and potential knowledge gaps. In order to complete the understanding of drought paradigms based on documentary analysis, we have also conducted in-depth interviews (n:23) with researchers and actors in the water management sector, particularly those involved in the design of the participatory water management in Ceará in the mid-1990s, as well as those involved in action research programs aimed at upgrading the water allocation system and drought management plans. In addition to interviews with the State representatives, we conducted extensive field surveys in the years 2022–2023, with three field missions in the Banabuiú-Jaguaribe area. The field missions involved in-depth interviews (n:17) with local associations and members of the Water Committees of the Banabuiú Basin (called Banabuiú Hydrologic Region), along with participatory observation at several water allocation meetings. We also conducted 20 in-depth interviews with local actors from five rural communities in Banabuiú area where the supply of water comes from small dams. The hydrological data were produced by Integrated Water Resources Management System (SIGERH) institutions, particularly the Foundation Cearense for Meteorology and Water Resources (FUNCEME), which is part of the State Water Agency (Portuguese acronym SRH), and is responsible for providing climate data (short- and medium-term weather forecasts, particularly concerning rainfall) and monitoring of the water resources in Ceará in partnership with the Water Resources Management Company – COGERH.

Based on a qualitative analysis of documents and interviews, we have created a timeline of the key stages in the development of drought policy and characterized the evolution of drought-related narratives (e.g. the idea that drought is something to be combatted, resolved or adapted to). The analysis considers the following three dimensions: i) the knowledge used to describe drought (e.g. socio-economic impacts, precipitation and water volumes in dams); ii) the management solutions and infrastructures promoted; and iii) the expected impacts of the policies. Finally, we overlaid this chronology with hydrological data to obtain an integrated view of how drought imaginaries, infrastructures and water management have co-evolved.

## 3. The centrality of infrastructures in facing droughts in the Northeast

### 3.1. How the drought infrastructures transform water into a 'hydric resource'

#### 3.1.1. The civilizational and developmental purpose of reservoirs in the Northeast

Dealing with water scarcity and climate variability is a salient feature of the semiarid Northeast that has shaped its history, geography, economy, culture, politics, and society. The history of water in the Northeast region is directly related to the recurrent droughts with dramatic social consequences (Buckley, 2010). Starting with the violent process of colonization targeting the indigenous population (da Silva, 2003), land in the Northeast was mostly occupied by *fazendas*, large-scale properties owned by landed elites and exploited poor landless rural laborers (Mendonça, 2007; Magalhaes, 2016; Teubal, 2016). This very unequal social and economic organization was directly connected with control of access to water resources. Indeed, private farms were usually located along the riverbanks (Molle, 1994), and the construction of dams (*açudes*) was a common practice among the private local farmers, as already evidenced in 1706 in correspondence from missionaries (Gouveia Neto, 1980). Missionaries, writers, politicians, geographers, and historians already testified in the 16th century to the drastic situation of peasants confronted with recurrent droughts (Buckley, 2010; de Melo, 2019). Each drought episode caused thousands of deaths from starvation and poor sanitary conditions, as well as drought-induced waves of migration (Buckley, 2017).

Beginning with the early 1900s, with international assistance, the newly independent Brazilian State organized large-scale field surveys in the Northeast. The aim of these geographic, meteorological, and hydrologic studies was to understand how to “fight drought”. Among the institutions created at that time, the *Inspectorate of Works against Droughts* (Portuguese acronym IOCS), established in 1909, was responsible for planning, financing, and supervising the construction of different types of infrastructure (dams, wells, and irrigation canals) to enable irrigated agriculture (DNOCS, 1961). These public works, based on a scientific and positivist approach, were seen as a way to “repair” nature’s irregularities (Gonçalves, 2018). According to José Ayres de Souza, the engineer in charge of IOCS, it was necessary to “fight against the weather” and “public works” were the solution. In the context of a nascent republic, fighting the drought was also a way of establishing
State control over the “wild” territory of the *Sertão* (Simões de Melo, 2019), thereby “bringing and building civilization” in the affected areas (Hamelin, 1958; Lima, 1999).

During the creation of the National Department of Works against Drought (DNOCS), in 1945 in Ceará, many criticisms were formulated concerning corruption and fraud in drought policies that the journalist and writer Antonio Callado qualified in 1960 (Callado, 1960) as the “drought industry” (*indústria da seca*). The hydraulic works, financed by public funds, were often built on private land (under what was referred to as a “cooperation regime” – Decree No. 24, 643, 1934) for collective purpose of supplying water to both humans and livestock, but land-owners very often prohibited access to the reservoirs by small peas-ants, thereby maintaining strict control over the water resources. Consequently, State investment in “fighting the drought” had a very limited impact on the rural population’s water vulnerability and instead favored the emergence of local elites and encouraged clientelism (Tavares and de Andrade, 1998; Collard et al., 2013). When the ‘coop-eration’ program ended in 1964, 600 dams had been built in the northeast of Brazil, 75 % of which concentrated in Ceará State (DNOCS, 2019).

As part of the high-modernity project of integrating the uncivilized Northeast into the State, the construction of reservoirs was increasingly associated with development objectives. The creation of the Bank of Northeast Brazil (BNB) in 1950, was meant to sustain investments in the economy (Andrade and Querioz, 2009) and support the projects of the Superintendence of Development for the Northeast (SUDENE). The objective of this agency was to increase the use of water in reservoirs (considered as “underused”), to develop irrigation systems and to manage land expropriations related to the agrarian reform. Starting in 1970, 53 irrigated permitters were created (53,329 ha in Ceará State out of a total of 128,598 ha) as part of the *Green Revolution*, and with the technical assistance of international institutions, under the DNOCS initiative (DNOCS, 2019), and irrigated agriculture became the biggest consumer of water in the area.

Despite the radical reduction in DNOCS' financial and human re-sources after 1990, this federal institution, which had its headquarters in Ceará, continued to implement large-scale irrigation perimeters even after 2000, thereby maintaining a high demand for water. However, according to information we gathered during our interviews, many of the DNOCS irrigated perimeters are far from being cultivated at full capacity due to a lack of investors, complicated expropriation and recolonization procedures, lack of technical assistance, debts, and above all, insufficient water. Nonetheless, irrigation dependency on large water infrastructures still privileges the biggest producers with political influence, embodying the idea of 'modern' and efficient irrigation that provides employment and enables the production of fruit for export with good financial returns. In conclusion, despite being portrayed as 'development hubs' (Pereira, 2017), the massive State investments in water infrastructures did little to address the socio-economic vulnera-bilities of the rural population (Oliveira et al., 2020).

### 3.1.2. *Imaginaries of reservoirs and related policies*

For decades, the drought management paradigm in the Northeast Brazil was dominated by engineering and a modern vision of water, characterized by a strong belief in technical solutions and in-frastructures as the way to fight drought and overcome its effects (Buckley, 2017). However, in 1991, a new severe drought led to the collapse of three strategic reservoirs that supply water to the metro-politan region of Fortaleza and caused an increase in social conflicts linked to water access. In a context of post-dictatorship democratization and modernization of the state institutions, a major reform of the water sector was undertaken in the State of Ceará. The State Water Agency of Ceará – SRH, created in 1987 together with its technical department (SOHIDRA – *Superintendência de Obras Hidraúlicas*), was already imple-menting important hydric works, with the financial and technical assistance of federal entities and World Bank.

Following the decentralization of federal policies, a state company for the water management (COGERH – *Companhia de Gestão dos Recursos Hídricos*) was founded in 1993 and started to collaborate in the man-agement of the biggest reservoirs in the state that had originally been built and managed by DNOCS. The original 90 strategic reservoirs (Peixoto, 1994), increased progressively in number and today COGERH manages 157 reservoirs. The creation of COGERH, as well as the future basin committees, and the introduction of water charges were condi-tions imposed on Ceará State by the World Bank, as prerequisites for obtaining a loan for the development of water infrastructures. In the same period, the metropolitan region of Fortaleza was facing a major water crisis caused by a severe drought. To solve the crisis, in 1993, a 113 km-long canal (*Canal do Trabalhador*) was constructed in 90 days to transfer water from the Jaguaribe-Banabuiú basin to Fortaleza Metro-politan Region, at the same time increasing water scarcity around the Banabuiú and Orós reservoirs (Souza Filho, 2022). To address the growing discontent, Jaguaribe Valley water users organized the first “Allocation Seminar” in 1994, that formed the basis for the creation of the basin committees. These Committees were established as “negotia-tion bodies” to deal with water conflicts linked to scarce water resources and to facilitate management of the reservoir by COGERH. The Com-mittees include representatives of the State, the Federal level, munici-palities, water users, and civil society.

They are responsible for drawing up Water Management Plans and, very importantly, also for the negotiated water allocation process. This participatory decision making is based on rigorous data concerning the volume of water in the reservoirs at the end of the rainy season (pro-vided by COGERH), the rain forecast for the following season (provided by FUNCEME), and the estimated demand for water in the water basin. Integrating all these data, COGERH produces three or four possible “scenarios”, each of which represents the release of a specific volume of water (in liters per second) and its impact on water reserves in the dams in the following year. In the large Jaguaribe-Banabuiú basin, the Allo-cation Seminar that is held at the end of the rainy season (end of June), the five Committees in the basin vote on the volumes of water to be released from the three main reservoirs in the valley destined for mul-tiple water uses (i.e. Castanhão, Orós and Banabuiú). Any citizen can participate in these seminaries and present their needs, complaints and demands, but only the members of the commission or committees can vote for one of the scenarios. This data-based allocation system is pre-sented as a way of depoliticizing drought management and water dis-tribution by avoiding political interference, particular social interests and clientelism (Taddei, 2011).

At a more local scale, the so-called ‘isolated socio-hydrological sys-tems’ (i.e. strategic reservoirs that are considered as not being linked to other reservoirs in the basin because they do not receive water from a big strategic reservoir) have also participatory bodies for water alloca-tion, called Management Commissions (*Comissões Gestoras* in Portu-guese). These Commissions include representatives of all the municipalities concerned, of public institutions, social organizations and local users, are also accompanied by COGERH in allocating water to downstream and ‘close’ communities and users. Of the 197 strategic reservoirs, 65 benefit from such commissions, their creation being justified by the importance of the public infrastructures they manage, and also by the real or potential conflicts related to sharing water be-tween the different stakeholders and users.

The participatory model of water allocation led by COGERH is strongly framed and sustained by an Integrated Water Resources Man-agement System (Portuguese acronym SIGERH) that brings together a complex national system of information about the availability of “hydric resources” (as water is called), institutional arrangements (Water Law and management rules, water rights – *outorga*, and water charges), and multiscale decision making bodies (from the State Council of Water Resources to Basin Committees, and Management Commissions). SIGERH was conceived as an “integrated system”, mainly from the perspective of water control infrastructures. Through a complex system
of reservoirs linked by riverbeds, channels and pipelines, it is possible to transfer water from one reservoir to another inside the same river basin and between river basins.

According to the Ceará Water Law, priority is given to supplying humans and livestock supply, next, to other uses including agriculture, and finally to environmental flows. When the volumes of water are low, many allocation meetings have no other choice than to only allocate sufficient water for human consumption, although originally, the allocation process was supposed to release a minimum flow to ensure an environmental flow. Faced with critically low water levels in the reservoirs and in order to reduce infiltration in the riverbeds, water transfers are starting to become more and more frequent, through permanent pipelines or using temporary emergency pipelines that can be moved from one place to another depending on the needs, with catastrophic ecological consequences and impacts on the recharge of aquifers, as well as on the possibility of practicing irrigated agriculture.

As a result, even though the negotiated water allocation process is a valuable advance for SIGERH in terms of allocating scarce water and managing water conflicts, its capacity to satisfy all social and environmental needs is still limited (Mayaux et al., 2024). From a territorial point of view, what is considered as “water demand” within a river basin or around a particular dam, is limited by the physical possibility of accessing and using harvested water. Remote rural communities or private properties that are not ‘connected’ to the network of strategic reservoirs managed by COGERH, due to long distances or non-existent infrastructures, are not considered to be “users” by the allocation system, and already in the past, started finding alternative sources of water and developing the infrastructure they need to enable them to “live with the semiarid” environment.

## 3.2. Counter-imaginaries about drought infrastructures – from the social technologies to plural waters

### 3.2.1. Epistemologies of the social technologies and the rural waters

The severe drought in 1992 that led to the creation of COGERH and to the water allocation system in Ceará State, had important social repercussions elsewhere in the Northeast. In 1993, the office of SUDENE was occupied by numerous social organizations (citizen organizations, social movements, trades unions, non-governmental organizations, women's organizations, and academics, among others) calling for rapid action to cope with drought and concerted measures for the development of the semi-arid area (da Silva, 2003). They called on the government to draw upon agrarian and agricultural policy, appropriate technologies, democratic and decentralized management of water resources, and public policies that are appropriate for a semi-arid area (Sieber and Gomes, 2020), in order to ensure the “continuity of the livelihoods of rural workers in the Northeast”, which they called “convivência com o semiárido” (“Living with the Semiarid”).

Following this initiative, the Articulation of Semi-arid Brazil (Portuguese acronym ASA), a major network of civil society organizations, was established in 1999 and currently assembles more than 3.000 organizations (ASA, 1999). ASA made major contributions to the development of the convivência paradigm (Andrade and Querioz, 2009), by defining a new understanding of the drought phenomenon, not just as a climate characteristic, or a development problem, but as something people have to learn how to live with (Sieber and Gomes, 2020), a salient characteristic of collective identity for the people of the North-east (ASA, 2023). The idea of convivência was strongly promoted by social movements such as the MST – Movement of Landless Rural Workers, a very active member of ASA. Convivência was defined as a movement of resistance to the dominant development model promoted by public interventions and based on increasing use of water for irrigation (Sieber and Gomes, 2020). The convivência paradigm promotes “local knowledge”, “contextualized education”, and “social technologies” defined as a “set of techniques, transformative methodologies, developed and/or applied in interaction with a population and

appropriated by them” (Diniz and Piraux, 2011).

In the early 2000s, the strong social mobilization and the popularization of the idea of “socio technologies” led to the implementation of important Federal programs (such as the One Million Rainwater Cisterns Program (Portuguese acronym P1MC), the Fresh Water Program (Portuguese acronym PAD), and the Water for All Program (Portuguese acronym PAPT), created in 2003, 2004 and 2014, respectively). In the case of Ceará, the Agriculture Development State Secretary (SDA), in charge of family agriculture, began implementing rural development policies and international aid programs, such as Sao José Programs – financed by the World Bank and implemented by the Secretary of the Rural Development (Portuguese acronym SDA).

In a context of weak planning and communication between the different institutions involved, these programs led to an uncontrolled accumulation of water infrastructures (i.e. multi-use rainwater cisterns, water reuse systems, small irrigation systems, small and medium reservoirs, deep wells and desalinization devices for underground water) with no clearly defined responsibility for management or collective rules (PREMISSA, 2020). In contrast with the state of knowledge concerning the strategic reservoirs, there is a cruel lack of data on access to water in rural areas, both at the State institution level and at the municipal level that barely control or are even familiar with the situation of rural communities (FUNCEME, 2022). According to the data provided by SDA 18,359 household cisterns for drinking water and 6664 for agricultural purposes were built between 2005 and 2020 in the Banabuiú basin alone (FUNCEME, 2022). At the same time, 5984 wells were drilled, most in the critical periods 2014–2018 and 2021–2022 (SRH, 2008). A significant number of 140 simplified water supply systems for rural communities are registered in the Banabuiú basin, yet the water sources are more often “unknow” (Fig. 2) and consequently no secured, by those financing the infrastructure.

The myriad of small infrastructures implemented by individual households or by collective arrangements radically improved water security in rural areas (SRH, 2008) but also reshaped local social organization and territories around water (Gasmí et al., 2024; Cavalcante et al., 2020). Two complementary water security strategies prevail, on one hand, increased individualization (as almost every household manages its own drinking water cistern and possibly also has a well), and on the other hand, collective water supply systems, based on small dams or deep wells that require some form of collective organization. These individual and collective strategies are highly complementary as they enable multiple uses of water in rural communities, but the relationship with external actors (i.e. Prefects, municipal councilors, political actors) is also very important in terms of ensuring hydric resilience in critical periods. Such external relations make it easier to access new infrastructures when needed, but also perpetuate a form of clientelism (Gasmí et al., 2024, Collard et al., 2013).

According to our interviews, the rural water supply systems managed by local community-based associations do not succeed in providing good quality water, and the individual household rainwater cisterns are still by far the main source of drinking water, even where piped water supply systems are in place. This is the case even in communities that are – in normal times – “connected” with the strategic reservoirs and “receive” some water via the allocation process. As treatment is non-existent or very rudimentary, households prefer to drink the water in the water tanks. The water piped from the reservoirs or wells is reserved for household use but not for use as drinking water, because it is usually untreated and may be too salty (in the case of wells) for human consumption. Agriculture, on the other hand, depends mainly on small dams, deep wells or multi-use cisterns.

However, despite the multiplication of infrastructures and of water management strategies, water security is not guaranteed in many rural communities during periods of severe drought, and the collective or strategic reservoirs can be used as water tanks if and when the community water sources – mainly cisterns – collapse. In other words, one can say that the infrastructures resulting from the two paradigms (the
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2.** Water sources for simplified water supply systems for rural communities in the Banabuiú basin. Legend: Graphic of our own elaboration based on data provided by SDA.</figcaption></figure>

strategic reservoirs and small-scale system of water supply and cisterns) co-exist and are very complementary in ensuring water security, even if they were developed by different actors, with different interests and agendas. Nevertheless, the multiplication of large and small-scale infrastructures originating from the two paradigms also creates competition, reshapes solidarities and causes conflicts, thereby creating fluid socio-hydrological territories depending on water availability.

### 3.2.2. Entangled socio-hydrological territories around the ' açude culture'

The complementarity and competition between the two paradigms and their infrastructures become very clear in the case of the “* açude culture*” – small and medium size reservoirs [38], historically created for multiple uses (i.e. the household water supply, watering livestock and irrigated agriculture). Even if not explicitly described by ASA as a “social technology”, probably because it is an old and not very robust technique in the face of drought, the * açudes* certainly form part of the *Convivencia com o Semiarid* imaginary. It is estimated that between 1916 and 1980, around 12,000 small dams were built with help from the State government, and this dynamic accelerated even more with municipal and private initiatives.

As in the case of the “cooperation reservoirs” built by DNOCS, the construction of * açudes* became a very important political resource for local elites. Some communities with “good contacts” succeeded in having one, or more than one, * açude* built by a municipal councilor, a pre-fect, a senator or an important businessman. These * açudes* are “given” to the communities in exchange for political support, but are not accompanied by formal ownership rights or management responsibilities.

With the emergence of public policies led by SDA and ASA for the implementation of diverse water supply infrastructures, the importance of the * açudes* for household use has decreased in the past two decades, but thousands of new reservoirs have been created for small-holder agriculture, often with financial aid from the State and credit from the Northeast Bank (Banco do Nordeste) to develop agricultural production. This process accelerated after 2010 with the development of the milk industry and the increasing need for water for livestock and for fodder cultivated in the humid areas around the reservoirs or when the reservoirs were emptying. As a result, the number of small reservoirs increased from 70,000 in the late 1980s to more than 100,000 in 2020 (FUNCEME, 2012).

Taking a closer look at the Banabuiú basin, FUNCEME identified 6839 ‘water mirrors’ (e.g. as are called the water surfaces visualize by satellite images) of more than 0.5 ha, including 88 more than 50 ha, considering the largest areas of water surfaces recorded between 2008

and 2020. According to the interviews, they are generally used for irrigation and watering livestock (small-scale irrigation, rain-fed crops), but in some cases, are also used for human consumption. Most of the * açudes* used for the water supply are considered to be ‘collective’ because they are used for that purpose, but in terms of ownership, they may be either public, private, or their status may be fuzzy, and in periods of drought, their situation became even fuzzier.

Although, theoretically, in “normal times”, the COGERH does not interfere with these dams, the resilient small * açudes* can be used by COGERH or the municipalities during critical periods to ensure a local water supply or to supply another community or urban district, as is the case of the *Cachoeira do Germano* reservoir. Private * açudes* can be called on to supply water, as this is a legal obligation. Emergency and provisory pipes can be installed, causing discontent and even conflicts (“The State took our water. All the fish died because of this and now we can’t fish anymore”), in a context of fuzzy ownership and rights of use.

In some cases, on the contrary, it is COGERH that is called on by the communities, for their experience of mediating conflicts related to the dams. COGERH professionals said they can indeed mediate in conflicts concerning small dams, but that they try to encourage the communities to deal with this type of problem on their own, as COGERH cannot monitor these dams or call for new water allocation commissions.

Most of the * açudes* identified by FUNCEME are small private dams, with a very high concentration in the critical areas of the Banabuiú basin, where the average annual rainfall is often lower than in the rest of the State. However, beginning in 2013, the curve of water volume harvest into the dam no longer mirrors the annual precipitation curve (Fig. 3), as had been expected.

This situation is mainly explained by the very high density of small dams that impacts the recharge capacity of this strategic reservoir (FUNCEME, 2012) and means that the basin reached a process of closure (Molle, 2008) due to over-construction of hydraulic infrastructure (mainly large and small dams, but also wells) and increasing water consumption. Both independent and planned actions (i.e. guided by public authorities) lead to overexploitation of the basin, with unintended consequences, and clearly indicate the need for stronger territorial planning to articulate the water management sector with the rural development dynamics.

However, even if the storage capacity of Banabuiú * açude* appears to be jeopardized by the concentration of small dams, it is still the most important * açude* of the Sertão Central, and is used by the State as the only source for the implementation of *Malha d'Agua* Project in this area. This ongoing project supposes the construction of a water supply plant
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 3.** Evolution of the annual water volumes of Banabuiú Dam and the annual precipitation in the area. Legend: The curve shows the annual average volume of water in Banabuiú dam. The bars indicate annual cumulative rainfall. Source: the authors, based on Funceme data series.</figcaption></figure>

able to provide water for the main urban centers in the area. In order to secure the water of Banabuiú *acude* for human use, the hydrological models show that no more water should be allocated from this dam. In exchange, all medium size dams (e.g. Fogareiro and Quixeramobim) that are currently used for domestic water supply, could be tapped for other uses, such as agriculture. This new infrastructure was designed by the State to increase water security in a particular fragile area, but could lead to new demands for water. The *Malha d'Agua* project has the political support of the prefects of the municipalities that will receive water but was defined without consulting the Basin committee. The Basin committee finally approved the infrastructure plan, but the new water allocation scenario has not yet been discussed. Moreover, the management model of the treated water arriving at urban centers and the price of treated water price also still need discussion, raising multiple concerns for municipal water services. The new infrastructure, which is expected to be operational in 2025, will centralize the water supply for the main urban areas of the basin on a single reservoir, but its resilience to drought and its impact on improving water security in the area will depend on socio-hydrological dynamics that need to be better informed and organized through collective actions.

# 4. The drought trap and the imaginaries of the future – beyond the narrative of changing paradigms

## 4.1. Preparing for future drought through proactive management

More than 120 years after the creation of DNOCS, the Northeast region is still forced to cope with severe droughts. The latest episode, which lasted from 2012 to 2018, highlights the limitations of relying solely on infrastructure to deal with drought. In 2017, 38 monitored reservoirs were dry, and 48 were on “dead volume”, making water allocation impossible. At that time, according to the State Civil Defense, 137 of Ceará’s 184 municipalities were facing emergency conditions (FUNCEME, 2022). The halt to water releases and the drying up of rivers reduced possibilities for irrigated agriculture, and brought the process of allocation to a crisis point where there was no water left to allocate, thereby endangering the water supply to rural and small urban communities.

In recent decades, Ceará’s water management system has aimed to shift from a ‘crisis approach’ to ‘proactive drought management’ (Martins et al., 2025). This concept, encouraged by the World Bank, was developed during the drought in 2012 to transition from traditional crisis management to risk-based drought preparedness (de Nys et al.,

2017).

One of the pillars of proactive management is improving drought forecasting to better track the vulnerability of at-risk populations and ecosystems. With technical assistance from the World Bank, in 2014, FUNCEME initiated “Drought Monitoring” (Monitor de Secas) throughout the Northeast region, a “climate information and early warning system” inspired by experiences in the United States and Mexico (Martins et al., 2025). The Monitor provides monthly maps indicating the different levels of drought risk, from abnormal to exceptional. Based on this information, municipalities can apply for State and Federal assistance for emergency situations (mainly subsidies for the water truck program). Although the Monitoring Program provides crucial climatic information and helps organize emergency responses, it fails to adequately address the local socio-economic impacts on rural communities, as data from local observers are actually underutilized (Walker et al., 2024) and aggregated at the municipal level.

Another pillar of proactive management involves defining ‘Proactive Drought Management Plans’ for strategic reservoirs (initiated in 2023), for basins, and, in subsequent stages, for State policy. These plans outline specific actions (such as monitoring, inspection, credits, meetings, pipes, wells, or water cuts for non-priority uses) for four predefined water scarcity levels of the same reservoir (ranging from “normal” to “severe drought”). Once discussed and approved by committee members, the action plans are supposed to be implemented with no resistance, even when the allocation of water for “non-essential” uses is suspended. Compared to the allocation procedure, drought plans offer a more integrated territorial perspective, including all water sources (small reservoirs, wells, *cacimbas*, etc.) and cover broader water demands and needs. However, as the plans are primarily discussed with committee members, the main point of reference remains the volumes of water in strategic dams. Additionally, predefined water cuts for certain uses can interfere with the allocation procedure, posing a critical challenge for harmonizing the two practices.

Moreover, in reaction to the last hydric crises and beyond the participatory water allocation bodies and the committees, a State level “Contingency Group”, now called “Integrated Committee”, was created in 2017. This committee groups SIGERH institutions, the water utility (City Department, Ceará Water and Sewage Company – CAGECE), and the Civil Defense. Since the last drought, the group has been meeting once a week (or once every two weeks when conditions are normal) to review water availability data and decide whether interventions are needed to ensure the urban water supply. Municipalities can request assistance directly from the Integrated Committee, bypassing the slower
decision-making process of the committees for emergency infrastructure
discussions. Based on how long the water supply to the urban center can
be guaranteed, the Integrated Committee determines which municipal-
ities will receive new water infrastructures projects such as wells and
emergency pipelines, from SOHIDRA, COGERH, or CAGECE, and where
a water-truck operation will be started or discontinued. At the same
time, on each major drought, it is the State Water Council that decides
on the new strategic infrastructures to be implemented in the long-term.

## 4.2. Problematizing infrastructure closure

The difficulties caused by the last severe multi-year drought (2012–2018) revealed the strength but also the fragility of water management in Ceará, and once again questions the role the centrality of the infrastructures plays in water management. Despite the massive construction of reservoirs in the last century, Ceará State is still confronted with serious water crises, but “The system 'resists' and has to be reinforced for the crises expected in the future, especially in a context of climate change that could further aggravate the drought phenomena” (Interview, SRH representant, 2023).

As observed in other places, large-scale water infrastructures in Ceará are functioning as “modern promises” even if they continually fail to perform exactly as originally hoped (Scott, 1998) The very strong modern imaginary that engineering knowledge and technology are advancing, and that will finally succeed in solving the drought problem continues to play a central role in the water management system, always in a search for new technical solutions to increase the supply of water. Indeed, the storage capacity of the reservoirs was often overestimated at the beginning of this century (i.e. Quixeramobim, Patu; according to COGERH employees), and some of the reservoirs never get to store the promised volume of water because of erroneous calibration (i.e. Quixadá). Nevertheless, State investments in the construction of reservoirs continued throughout the 20th Century (Campos, 2014; Magalhaes, 2016, Oliveira et al., 2020), and intensified after each major drought episode.

The rainwater storage capacity in Ceará has continually increased since the beginning of the century, with the construction of large reservoirs with pluri-annual storage capacity, but the stored volume of water has not matched the storage capacities (c.f. Fig. 4).

This situation is mainly interpreted as the direct consequence of a rainfall deficit and the effect of “supply-demand cycles” (Di Baldassarre et al., 2018) is not really questioned. Nevertheless, according to FUNCEME hydrological models, the minimum storage level observed during the last drought in the second half of 2016 (Fig. 3) would have been reached as early as the second half of 2015 without the newest and

biggest dam (Castanhão – build in 2002 with 6.700 Mm³ storage capacity). In other words, with this most recent dam, the SRH system gained one year of water security and avoided the collapse of the water supply system for the capital Fortaleza.

However, it is estimated that Ceará State has reached saturation point in terms of reservoir density (Araújo and Medeiros, 2013). Although water control infrastructures are still part of the solution, the spectrum of a new drought that could cause the system to collapse has always been a central preoccupation for the SIGERH. A huge project of water transfer from the São Francisco River initiated in 2007 with Federal funds, finally reached the integrated system of the reservoirs of Ceará in 2022, to secure water supply for the Metropolitan Region of Fortaleza. This last security belt, which in theory will only be used in critical drought periods, is already creating dreams of productivity and speculation concerning irrigation in Jaguaribe Valley and along the water transfer channel that crosses the State on a trajectory of more than 400 km. While some water management actors argue that water from transposition is too expensive to be used for irrigation (e.g. even though it has not yet been established if the State or the users will pay the cost of the transposition), political speeches are reproducing the same developmental narrative that considers a very tense supply-demand balance, as each supplementary volume of water that becomes available is claimed for economic purposes by both private and public actors.

## 4.3. The persistence of infrastructural imaginaries in drought management

In the Ceará case, water policies and drought management have been historically intertwined as two faces of the same coin, attempting to balance long-term water resources planning with the need for rapid decision making during critical drought situations. The centrality of the infrastructures makes the water management system both solid, by constantly increasing water supply and “integrating” new territories, and at the same time flexible, by introducing water allocation and proactive plans for managing water conflicts related to the hierarchization of uses. Some actors describe this evolution of the water management in Ceará State in terms of a recent transition from “hard-path” to “soft-path” solutions (da Silva, 2003; Medeiros and Sivapalan, 2020), referring to a paradigm change from the hydraulic paradigm of “fighting the drought” to the *Convivencia* paradigm (Diniz and Piraux, 2011). Without denying the pertinence of these narratives of a paradigm change in the water management of the Northeast, we argue that, seen through the lens of infrastructure, the “hard” and “soft” solutions appear as entangled in the evolution of water policy in Ceará, by a succession of measures defined in critical times as a reaction to drought events

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 4.** The evolution of water storage capacity and actual volume of water stored in strategic reservoirs in Ceará. Legend. Relation between water storage capacity and the actual volume of water stored in reservoirs monitored by COGERH between 1986 and 2020 in Ceará State (a). Drought events are represented according to SPI-36 (shaded area) and storage capacity is indicated by the dashed line).</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 5.** The co-evolution of infrastructures and water management system in Ceará. Legend: Main drought events recorded in Ceará estimated using the SPI method – represented in red and their impact on water accumulated in the dams represented in violet. The years when the dams were constructed are represented in black and the main institutional arrangements in green. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)</figcaption></figure>

(Fig. 5). This co-construction is not meant to change the imaginary of the centrality of infrastructures in dealing with drought, on the contrary, it is intended to maintain their centrality and even to extend the possibilities of expansion of water control. Far from a “infrastructural bifurcation” (Florentin, 2018) or a significative change in the understanding of the water infrastructures’ main role for increasing water offer, the institutional arrangements in place (water allocation, long-term planning) are adaptations of the technical system to guarantee its maintenance, along with the needed social acceptance. Indeed, from a historical perspective, the co-evolution of reservoir building and institutional arrangements is an ongoing reactive process shaped by recurrent drought episodes.

Both reservoirs and institutional arrangements are a “reaction” to drought crises, and the implementation of either “hard” or “soft” solution is contribution to maintain and reinforce the infrastructure centrality. The integrated technical system of harvesting and transferring water continue, and the participatory allocation is helping to sustain it. Both pro-active water management plans and new large-scale infrastructures are part of the preparation for future droughts. This intertwined historical trajectory shows that the resilience of the water management system to drought is not defined by the quantity of infrastructures alone, nor only by “soft” planning, but by the subtle articulation between the two. In the case of Ceará, this articulation is mainly defined as one between long-term planning (proactive management plans) and short-term measures (water allocation), but, faced with the threat of drought, the infrastructure solutions are always decided before preparing concrete management solutions needed to ensure more a reasonable use and a more equitable distribution of scarce water resources. This is a consequence of the dominant and persistent belief that improving water management is about increasing the water supply, and that this is a purely technical equation face to climate uncertainty. Social questions about sharing resources and solving the problem of water scarcity only emerge later, as a secondary problem to be solved.

## 5. Discussion

The necessity to reimagine the role of infrastructures in drought management through interdisciplinary research.

Going beyond the dominant technical thinking implies developing solid interdisciplinary investigations to demystify the idea that water control technologies are neutral technical solutions, as is often the case in the field of water management, conceived and implemented beyond social interests, power games, moralities and norms. As shown by scholars from Critical Political Ecology field, infrastructures in society cannot be considered and theorized only in terms of “technical objects”, as they are intrinsically “relational” (Boelens et al., 2019; Flaminio and Reynard, 2023; Shah and Boelens, 2021; Sultana, 2023). Indeed, the conception and implementation of water control infrastructures are the reflections (and the material expression) of pre-existing knowledge, ideologies, power structures, financial resources, social relations, and, of course, pre-existing infrastructures. In return, the agency of infrastructures not only concerns guaranteeing water security, but also remodeling ways of knowing the water, collective imaginaries, understandings and subjectivities about what water is and how it should be managed (Hommes et al., 2022).

If reservoirs in the Ceará undoubtedly play a determining role in securing the water supply (Nascimento and Ribeiro, 2017), their massive construction shaped a particular water ontology as “recursos hidricos” (e.g. hydric resources) stored in dam reservoirs and controlled by engineering works. Water, captured and stored in reservoirs, is no longer a capricious element of the environment, but has become a socio-technical reality, a quantitative resource that legitimizes extensive capital investment in order to “produce” more water each time for the purpose of economic development or to supply water to the cities. Infrastructures determine not only the water’s physical boundaries and ontologies, but also frame the possibilities of knowing and managing the resource (Molle and Mollinga, 2003). As one of the COGERH employees explained during an interview, if Ceará is the only State in the semiarid area where water allocation is implemented, it is because the reservoirs not only “produce water”, but they also offer the possibility of
controlling and measuring water flows.

Water allocation is largely considered by the COGERH and members of the Committees as “learning by doing” that takes place through the encounter between hydrological constraints and a social mobilization process led by professionals of COGERH to ensure a collective decision process, and finally, the legitimation of water sharing within the water management system. Yet, the allocation seminars and meetings are also the instances where the criticisms and boundaries of the integrated water management system are discussed and negotiated, by deciding which community or which local producer should benefit from the water. This “negotiation” which apparently only concerns the levels of water in the reservoirs, is – in reality – also about the infrastructures and adductors that can render the water available to communities and territories. The prioritization of uses in the allocation process is based on a “quantitative principle of water justice” (Oliveira et al., 2017), as stated at the creation of COGERH, but is also acting as a moralizing framework, justifying who are the holders of water rights and legitimating the exclusion of others. Beyond increasing the supply, the water management sector has to address the question of the development model that it sustains, by discussing where the available water should to transported, to whom and for what purpose.

Interrelated waters and the hybridization of infrastructure agencies.

Understanding water infrastructures from a grounded and relational perspective also involves considering how they generate and “integrate” new hydrosocial territories (Boelens et al., 2019), in intended and unintended ways. That means that water infrastructures designed to control water flows at one moment in time, cannot be themselves totally controlled, as they are entangled in a “seamless web” (Star, 1999) of hydrosocial relationships that co-evolve at different territorial scales. For example, we showed how rural communities or private properties that are not “connected” with the strategic reservoirs managed by COGERH or do not receive any water, develop a variety of individual and collective strategies and implement a myriad of little infrastructures, with the help of the State, NGOs, associations or private actors. These strategies of adaptation to climate variability, aimed at securing water for both drinking and agricultural production, highlight the fragmented and often poorly established levels of water governance at the local scale that challenge the existing management system. The State’s role at the local scale is limited to providing small infrastructures, but lacks the capacity of ensuring the implementation of a management scheme.

This situation of unplanned accumulation of infrastructures and fragmentation of socio-hydrological territories (Gasmi et al., 2024), which is the case in the Banabuiú basin, is a new challenge the current water management will need to face and adapt to. One possible future development is a closer articulation of the existing management scales (basins and “isolated hydro-social systems”) with the more “local” municipal and community levels. This would require considering existing and potential future competition between different types of infrastructure, but also possible conflicts of interest between the responsible institutions as well as power relationships between water stakeholders. As we discussed in this paper, the apparent competition between strategic and non-strategic reservoirs in normal times, can also be transformed to reinforce territorial solidarity with stronger interdependencies and exchanges in terms of water supply in drought-critical times. As one of the interviewees from SRH put it: “*The scarcer the water, the more integrated the system, because we need to transfer water from one reservoir to another, over a longer distance each time, each time redefining the limits of the system*” (Interview 26, researcher – cientista chefe SRH, 2024). This territorial inter-dependency is desired, controlled and constructed by the water management system, but can also be unplanned and unintended yet necessary beyond the normal local “limits” of the water management system. In other words, the territories and the scales are already connected, or can be connected, by means of all kinds of infrastructures, and the management system has to

keep adapting to this moving socio-hydrological reality.

Even if the water management system succeeds in maintaining its control over the large strategic infrastructures, this is not the case at more local scales, where the water management system needs to improve territorial planning and decision-making concerning water infrastructure and uses. Although this reflection has already taken place with the implementation of the water allocation process, the State of Ceará is still finding it difficult to escape the logic of crisis management and the centrality of infrastructure solutions. To overcome these difficulties, it is necessary to reconsider the social dimensions of infrastructure that not only involve integrating and redistributing water flows, but also favor some territories and actors to the detriment of others. This makes new uses possible and creates new demands, but also leads to social contestation, conflicts, resistance, or adaptation strategies that also need to be “integrated” in the water management paradigm.

## 6. Conclusions

Water infrastructures are undoubtedly key instruments for addressing drought problems and ensuring water security, as shown by the emblematic history of Northeast of Brazil and Ceará State. Beyond the “fix” and framing effects of infrastructures, they are producing hybrid socio-territorial assemblages that continuously require the definition of new forms of social organization, knowledge and the adaptation of water management practices. If the negotiated water allocation is understood as a valuable institutional setting to ensure the social acceptance and legitimation of the existing water management system, hydric infrastructures also incorporate moralities and norms about who can legitimately receive water. The dominant technical ways of knowing and imagining water, also integrate and generate a moral understanding of the legitimacy of participating in the definition of water problems and solutions. Interdisciplinary investigation and historical understanding of the trajectories of hydrosocial territories continually reshaped by water infrastructures, are needed to deconstruct this dominant way of thinking about drought management and foster critical thinking among water stakeholders.

### CRediT authorship contribution statement

**Veronica Mitroi:** Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Supervision, Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Conceptualization. **Daniela Michelle Encamilla Henriquez:** Writing – review & editing, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. **Laudemira Silva Rabelo:** Writing – review & editing, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. **Isabelle Tritsch:** Writing – review & editing, Project administration, Investigation, Formal analysis. **Francisco das Chagas Vasconcelos Júnior:** Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Project administration, Methodology, Investigation, Data curation. **Marcel Kuper:** Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Resources, Conceptualization. **Eduardo Sávio P.R. Martins:** Writing – review & editing, Validation, Supervision, Project administration, Conceptualization.

### Funding

This work was supported by the French Agency of Development under the Grant Sertôes – Facilité 2050: Programme de soutien à l’élaboration de trajectoires de développement bas carbone et résilientes dans le Ceará et le Nordeste du Brésil.

### Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Annex 1. Acronyms and functions of the main institutions involved in drought management in Ceará

<table><thead><tr><td>Name and acronym</td><td>Function</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>IOCS – Inspectorate of Works Against Droughts</td><td>Created in 1909, IOCS was responsible for planning, financing, and supervising the construction of different types of infrastructure (dams, wells, and irrigation canals) to enable irrigated agriculture in the Northeast</td></tr><tr><td>DNOCS – National Department of Works against Drought</td><td>Created in 1945, it replaces the IOCS and continue the investment into dams and irrigation infrastructure in Northeast and particularly in Ceará.</td></tr><tr><td>SUDENE – Superintendence of Development for the Northeast</td><td>A development national agency supported by Bank of Northeast Brazil, having as objectives to develop irrigation systems and to manage land expropriations related to the agrarian reform.</td></tr><tr><td>SRH – State Water Agency</td><td>Is in charge with the management of the strategic dams of Ceará State and coordinate the allocation process done by basin committees and dan commission.</td></tr><tr><td>FUNCEME – Foundation Cearense for Meteorology and Water Resources</td><td>Part of SRH, this state agency conducts research and produce information about meteorology, hydrology and water resources, and environment.</td></tr><tr><td>COGERH – Water Resources Management Company</td><td>Water Resources Management Company. Founded in 1993, this organism of the SRH is in charge with the management of the strategic dams of Ceará and coordinate the allocation process done by basin committees and dan commission.</td></tr><tr><td>SOHIDRA – Hydraulic Works Superintendence</td><td>Part of the SRH, this department is in charge with the construction of kind of water infrastructures: small dams, wells, pipes, etc.</td></tr><tr><td>SIGERH – Integrated Water Resources Management System</td><td>All the institutions related with water monitoring and water management in Ceará are part of the SIGERH, a centralized system that is meant to give more coherence, facilitate the change of information and decision making between the various state institutions.</td></tr><tr><td>SDA – Development State Secretary</td><td>Ministry of rural development, in charge with small farms and territorial development in rural areas, including water access.</td></tr><tr><td>ASA – Articulation of Semi-arid Brazil</td><td>A major network of civil society organizations, established in 1999 in order to improve water access for rural areas in Northeast.</td></tr></tbody></table>

Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

References

Andrade, F.L., Querioz, P.V. M., 2009. Articulação no semiárido Brasileiro—ASA e o seu Programa de Formação e Mobilização e para Convivência com o Semiárido. In: Küster, A., Ferré Martí, A. (Eds.), Políticas públicas para o semiárido. Experiências e conquistas no Nordeste do. Brasil Fundação Konrad Adanauer, pp. 26–53.

Araújo, J.C., Medeiros, P.H.A., 2013. Impact of dense reservoir networks on water resources in semiarid environments. Aust. J. Water Resour. 17 (1), 87–100. https://doi.org/10.7158/13241583.2013.11465422.

ASA, 1999. Declaração do Semi-Arido. Propostas da articulação no semi-árido brasileiro ra a convivência com o semi-árido e combate à desertificação. Articulação Semi-Árido Brasileiro ASA. SEMIARIDO - ASA Brasil - Articulação no Semiárido Brasileiro, (accessed on 20 May 2023).

ASA, 2023. História—ASA Brasil—Articulação no Semiárido Brasileiro. Articulação no Semiárido Brasileiro. https://www.asabrasil.org.br/sobre-nos/historia, (accessed 20 May 2023).

Blöschl, G., Bierkens, M.F.P., Chambel, A., Cudennec, C., Destouni, G., Fiori, A.K., et al., 2016. Twenty-three unsolved problems in hydrology (UPH) – a community perspective. Hydrol. Sci. J. 64, 1141–1158. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2019.1620507.

Boelens, R., Shah, E., Bruins, B., 2019. Contested knowledges: large dams and mega-hydraulic development. Water 11 (3). https://doi.org/10.3390/w11030416.

Buckley, E. E., 2010. Drought in the sertão as a natural or social phenomenon: Establishing the Inspetoria Federal de Obras Contra as Secas, 1909-1923. Boletim Do Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas 5(2), 379–398. doi: 10.1590/S1981-81222010000200011.

Buckley, E.E., 2017. Technocrats and the Politics of Drought and Development in Twentieth-Century. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.

Callado, A., 1960. Os industrias da seca e os “Galileus” de Pernambuco. Civilização Brasileira, Rio de Janeiro.

Campos, J.N.B., 2014. Secas e políticas públicas no semiárido: Ideias, pensadores e períodos. Estudos Avançados 28, 65–88. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0103-40142014000300005.

Cavalcante, L., Mesquita, P.S., Rodrigues-Filho, S., 2020. 2nd Water Cisterns: social technologies promoting adaptive capacity to Brazilian family farmers. Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente 55. https://doi.org/10.5380/dma.v55i0.73389.

Collard, A.-L., Burte, J.D.P., Pinton, F., Jacobi, P.R., 2013. Accès à l'eau et clientélisme dans le Nordeste brésilien. Natures Sciences Sociétés 21, 35–44. https://doi.org/10.1051/nss/2013060.

da Silva, R.M.A., 2003. Entre dois paradigas: Combate à seca e convivência com o semi-árido. Sociedade e Estado 18 (1-2), 361–385. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-69922003000100017.

de Melo, L.S., 2019. A história que perpassa a inspetoria de obras contra as secas em 1915 no Ceará. Revista Cantareira 21.

de Nys, E., Engle, N., Magalhães, A.R., 2017. Drought in Brazil: Proactive Management and Policy. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group.

Di Baldassarre, G., Wanders, N., AghaKouchak, A., Kuil, L., Rangecroft, S., Veldkamp, T.I. E., Garcia, M., van Oel, P.R., Breinl, K., Van Loon, A.F., 2018. Water shortages worsened by reservoir effects. Nat. Sustainability 1 (11). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0159-0.

Di Baldassarre, G., Sivapalan, M., Rusca, M., Cudennec, C., Garcia, M., Kreibich, H., Konar, M., Mondino, E., Mård, et al., 2019. Sociohydrology: scientific challenges in addressing the sustainable development goals. Water Resour. Res. 55, 6327–6355. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR023901.

Diniz, P.C.O., Piraux, M., 2011. Das intervenções de combate à seca às ações de convivência com o semiárido: Trajetória de 'experimentalismo institucional' no semiárido brasileiro. accessed 21 March 2023 Cadernos De Estudos Sociais 26 (2). https://periodicos.fundaj.gov.br/CAD/article/view/1457.

Dnocs, 1961. Conservação e exploração de águas particular. Para uso dos proprietários de águas construídos pelo DNOCS em regime de cooperação. DNOCS, Fortaleza.

DNOCS, 2019. Desenvolvimento e gestão dos recursos hídricos no semiárido nordestino. DNOCS, Fortaleza.

Flaminio, S., Reynard, E., 2023. Multipurpose use of hydropower reservoirs: imaginaries of Swiss reservoirs in the context of climate change and dam relicensing. Water Altern. 16 (2), 705–729.

Florentin, D., 2018. La bifurcation infrastructurelle. Revue Européenne Des Sciences Sociales 56-1, 241-261. https://doi.org/10.4000/ress.4060.

Funceme, 2012. Mapeamento das barragens dos pequenos reservatórios d'água situados no Estado do Ceará [Relatório Técnico] (unpublished Research Report). Fundação Cearense De Geografia e Recursos Hídricos.

FUNCEME, 2022. Análise dos impatos das secas e da variação hidroclimática sobre a resiliência hídrica na bacia do Banabuíú. Relatorio Producto 1. Projeto Sertoes. Ceará. (unpublished research report).

Gasmí, H., Vieira, L.F., Kuper, B., J.d.p., 2024. The Role of Small-Scale Hydraulic Infrastructure in Transforming Hydrosocial Territories in a Catchment in Ceará, Brazil. Water Altern. 17 (1), 46–72.

Greve, P., Kahil, T., Mochizuki, J., Schinko, T., Satoh, Y., Burek, P., Fischer, G., Tramberend, S., Burtscher, R., Langan, S., Wada, Y., 2025. Global assessment of water challenges under uncertainty in water scarcity projections. Nat. Sustainability 1, 486–494. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0134-9.

Gonçalves, P.C., 2018. O mandacaru não floresceu: a ciência positivista a serviço do combate à seca de 1877-1879. História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos 25, 515–539. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-59702018000200012.

Gouveia Neto, N.A., 1980. Acudagem no Ceará. DNOCS, Fortaleza.

Hamelin, L.-E., 1958. Le « Sertão » du « Nordeste » (Brésil). Essai de définition d'un « pays ». Cahiers De Géographie Du Québec 2 (4), 241-248. https://doi.org/10.7202/020091ar.

Hommes, L., Hoogesteger, J., Boelens, R., 2022. (Re)making hydrosocial territories: Materializing and contesting imaginaries and subjectivities through hydraulic infrastructure. Polit. Geogr. 97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102698.

Joy, K.J., Kulkarni, S., Roth, D., Zwarteveen, M., 2014. Re-politicising water governance: exploring water re-allocations in terms of justice. Local Environ. 19, 954–973. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2013.870542.

Kellner, E., 2021. The controversial debate on the role of water reservoirs in reducing water scarcity. WIREs Water 8 (3), e1514.

Kumar, P., Avtar, R., Dasgupta, R., Johnson, B.A., Mukherjee, Ahsan, N., Nguyen, D.C.H., Nguyen, H.Q., Shaw, R., Mishra, B.K., 2020. Socio-hydrology: a key approach for adaptation to water scarcity and achieving human well-being in large riverine
islands. Prog. Disaster Sci. 8, 100134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
pdisas.2020.100134.

Kuper, M., Mayaux, P.-L., Benmihoub, A., 2023. The persistent appeal of the California
agricultural dream in North Africa. Water Altern. 16 (1), 39-64.

Lima, J. R., Magalhães, A.R., 2018. Secas no Nordeste, Registros históricos das catástrofes econômicas e humanas do século 16 ao século 20, 23(46) 22.

Lima, N.T., 1999. Um Sertão Chamado Brasil: Intelectuais e Representação Geográfica da Identidade Nacional. Revan/iuperj-UCAM.

Linton, J., 2010. What is Water? The History of a Modern Abstraction, fourth ed.
University of British Columbia Press.

Linton, J., 2022. Waters in the Plural: Approaches and opportunities for more grounded research and management. Géocarrefour 96 (2). https://doi.org/10.4000/geocarrefour.19295.

Magalhaes, A.R., 2016. Vida e seca no Brasil, in E. de Nys, N. L. Engle, A. R. Magalhaes (Eds.), Secas no Brasil. Política e gestão proativas, Centro de Gestão e Estudos Estratégicos-CGEE, Banco Mundial, pp.78-97.

Martins, E., de Nys, E.D., Molejón, C.Q., Biazeto, B., Vieira Silva, R.F., Engle, N., 2025. Monitor de Secas do Nordeste, em busca de um novo paradigma para a gestão de secas. Banco Mundial. 2024. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.4238.8886 (accessed 7 January).

Mayaux, P.-L., Pimenta, I.D., Rabelo, L.S., Oliveira, W.R., Mitroi, V., 2024. Constructing water governability in Ceará: advances and challenges after four decades of reforms. Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente 63, 226-247. https://doi.org/10.5380/dma.v63i0.91095 e-ISSN 2176-9109.

Medeiros, P., Sivapalan, M., 2020. From hard-path to soft-path solutions: Slow-fast dynamics of human adaptation to droughts in a water scarce environment. Hydrol. Sci. J. 65 (11), 1803-1814. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2020.1770258.

Mendonça, D., 2007. Notas sobre a formação social do Nordeste. Lua Nova: Revista De Cultura e Política 41-79. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-64452007000200003.

Mehta, L., 2001. The manufacture of popular perceptions of scarcity: dams and water-related narratives in Gujarat, India. World Dev. 29, 2025-2041. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(01)00087-0.

Molle, F., 1994. Politique de l'eau, irrigation et société: Le cas du Nordeste brésilien. Cahiers De La Recherche Développement 19-32.

Molle, F., Mollinga, P., 2003. Water poverty indicators: conceptual problems and policy issues. Water Policy 5 (5-6), 529-544. https://doi.org/10.2166/wp.2003.0034.

Molle, F., 2008. Why enough is never enough: the societal determinants of River Basin Closure. Int. J. Water Resour. Dev. 24 (2), 217-226. https://doi.org/10.1080/0790062071723646.

Nascimento, V.F., Ribeiro, A., 2017. Characterization of reservoirs for water supply in Northeast Brazil using high resolution remote sensing. RBRH 22. https://doi.org/10.1590/2318-0331.0217170060.

Oliveira, S.M., Souza Filho, A., Aquino, S.H., 2017. Risk assessment of water allocation on water scarcity period: the case of Jaguaribe-Metropolitan system. Eng. Sanit. Ambient. 22, 749-760. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1413-41522017161303.

Oliveira, C., Alves, H., Paredes, F., 2020. Un Siglo de Sequías: ¿Por qué las Políticas de Agua no Desarrollaron la Región Semiárida Brasileña? Revista Brasileira De Meteorologia 35 (4), 683-688. https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-77863540073.

Pahl-Wostl, C., 2002. Participative and stakeholder-based policy design, evaluation and modeling processes. Integr. Assess. 3, 3-14. https://doi.org/10.1076/iiaj.3.1.3.7409.

Peixoto, B.A., 1994. Gerenciamento de recursos hídricos: a experiência de Ceará, in O gerenciamento dos recursos hídricos e o mercado de águas, Ministerio de Intregação Regional (Eds). MIR, Brazilia DF.

Pereira, M.C., 2017. Perspectivas da aquadagem no semiárido brasileiro e suas implicações na região do Seridó potiguar. Sociedade Natureza 29 (2). https://doi.org/10.14393/SN-v29n2-2017-7.

PREMISSA, 2020. Projeto Premissa - Resiliência e desenvolvimento sustentável rural na região Banabuiú/Médio Jaguaribe Diagnóstico Territorial e dos sistemas de

Governança e de Informação, AFD, CIRAD, FUNCEME. (unpublished research report).

Ross, A., Chang, H., 2020. Socio-hydrology with hydrosocial theory: two sides of the same coin? Hydrol. Sci. J. 65, 1443-1457. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2020.1761023.

Rusca, M., Di Baldassarre, G., 2019. Interdisciplinary critical geographies of water: capturing the mutual shaping of society and hydrological flows. Water 11 (10). https://doi.org/10.3390/w11101973.

Scoones, I., Smalley, R., Hall, R., Tsikata, D., 2019. Narratives of scarcity: framing the global land rush. Geoforum 101, 231-241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.06.006.

Scott, J., 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press, New Haven and London.

Shah, E., Boelens, R., 2021. The moralization of hydraulics: Reflections on the normative-political dimensions of water control technology. Geoforum 121, 93-104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.02.009.

Sieber, S., Gomes, R., 2020. Do enfrentamento à convivência: O Fórum Seca como movimento político. doi: 10.5380/dma.v55i0.73864, (accessed 14 April 2022).

Sivapalan, M., Savenije, H.H.G., Blöschl, G., 2012. Socio-hydrology: a new science of people and water. Hydrol. Process. 26, 1270-1276. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.8426.

SRH, 2008. Programa de abastecimento de água de pequenas comunidades rurais, https://www.srh.ce.gov.br/programa-de-abastecimento-de-agua-de-pequenas-co-municidades-rurais, (accessed 12 August 2023).

Star, S.L., 1999. The ethnography of infrastructure. Am. Behav. Sci. 43 (3), 377-391. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027649921955326.

Souza Filho, F. de A., 2022. Histórico da alocação negociada de água no Ceará. Fortaleza, AKVOS.

Sultana, F., Loftus, A., 2011. The Right to Water: Politics, Governance and Social Struggles. Routledge.

Sultana, F., 2023. Water, technology, and development: transformations of development technologies in changing waterscapes. Environ. Plann. D: Soc. Space 31, 337-353. https://doi.org/10.1068/d20010.

Swatuk, L., Qader, A. I. A., 2023. IWRM: Ideology or Methodology? In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.01 3.620, (accessed 10 March 2023).

Swyngedouw, E., 2004. Social Power and the Urbanization of Water, fourth ed. Oxford University Press.

Swyngedouw, E., 2007. Technonatural revolutions: the scalar politics of franco's hydro-social dream for Spain, 1939-1975. Trans. Inst. Br. 32, 9-28. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2007.00233.x.

Taddei, R., 2011. Watered-down democratization: Modernization versus social participation in water management in Northeast Brazil. Agric. Hum. Values 28 (1), 109-121. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-010-9259-9.

Tavares, M., Andrade, M. de C., Pereira, R.R., 1998. Seca e poder: Entrevista com Celso Furtado, fourth ed., Fundação Perseu Abramo.

Teubal, M., 2016. La tierra y la reforma agraria en América latina. Realidad Económica 200, 130-162.

Villa, M.A., 2000. Vida e morte no sertão: Histórias das secas no Nordeste nos séculos XIX e XX, fourth ed. Ática, Fortaleza.

Walker, D.D., Oliveira, J.-L., Cavalcante, L., Mitroi, V., et al., 2024. It's not all about drought: what "drought impacts" monitoring can reveal. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 103, 104338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2024.104338.

Wheater, H.S., Gober, P., 2015. Water security and the science agenda. Water Resour. Res. 51, 5406-5424. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR016892.

Zwarteveen M., Rusca, M., Linton, J., Haeffner, M., Lave, R., Mukherjee, J., Ndiritu, J., Pacheco Vega, R., 2022. Grounding sociohydrology through a justice lens, IAHS-AISH Scientific Assembly 2022, Montpellier, France, 29 May-3 Jun 2022, IAHS2022-247, doi: 10.5194/iahs2022-247.