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Research Group Integrated Urban Water Manegement (GIAU) was founded in 2014, due to the need to study and to suggest solutions to weaknesses reported in the municipality of Maringá, in Paraná State, regarding this subject. The integrated urban water management comprehend ah holistic view to potable water supply and sanitary sewage systems, water drainage management in urban areas, besides urban solid waste management. In this context, the aim of this paper is to present the research group and its main contributions up to this point. The applied method consisted of present the history from creation, formation and recent actions of the whole group and in carry out a systematic review of the published papers. The main results showed that although recent, the group has worked in a proactive way in its community by means of promotion of lectures and events, besides the production of 52 publications in national and international journals, national and international events, books and book chapters. The group has also board members highly qualified, concentrating in the training of human resources. It can be concluded that the research group is consolidating, with high performance expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socio-hydrology has recently garnered attention as a promising research paradigm among hydrologists. In this paper, we argue that viewing the socio-hydrological systems as a network of causal factors can assist in these efforts by revealing emergent properties of socio-hydrological systems. These factors, which are neither actors nor affiliations but symbolic representations of miscellaneous phenomena, represent the key variables affecting socio-hydrological system behaviour. Despite being crucial for understanding system dynamics, these factors are not captured by most equations of coupled human–water coevolutionary models. To demonstrate our method, we use qualitative case study research to analyse the Jaguaribe Basin in Ceará State-Brazil as a network of factors, i.e. mental conceptions, and representations of water resource management experts. We show that most results are unsurprising, exhibiting expected causal relationships. However, there was at least one unexpected result, which showed that the variable "conflict" was the single most sensitive variable to systemic evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semi-arid regions are known for erratic precipitation patterns with significant effects on the hydrological cycle and water resources availability. High temporal and spatial variation in precipitation causes large variability in runoff over short durations. Due to low soil water storage capacity, base flow is often missing and rivers fall dry for long periods. Because of its climatic characteristics, the semi-arid north-eastern region of Brazil is prone to droughts. To counter these, reservoirs were built to ensure water supply during dry months. This paper describes problems and solutions when calibrating and validating the eco-hydrological model SWIM for semi-arid regions on the example of the Pajeú watershed in north-eastern Brazil. The model was calibrated to river discharge data before the year 1983, with no or little effects of water management, applying a simple and an enhanced approach. Uncertainties result mainly from the meteorological data and observed river discharges. After model calibration water management was included in the simulations. Observed and simulated reservoir volumes and river discharges are compared. The calibrated and validated models were used to simulate the impacts of climate change on hydrological processes and water resources management using data of two representative concentration pathways (RCP) and five earth system models (ESM). The differences in changes in natural and managed mean discharges are negligible (< 5%) under RCP8.5 but notable (> 5%) under RCP2.6 for the ESM ensemble mean. In semi-arid catchments, the enhanced approach should be preferred, because in addition to discharge, a second variable, here evapotranspiration, is considered for model validation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Water management in mining is a significant issue for sustainability due to the strong dependence on this resource, especially for those operations with beneficiation plants. This is particularly relevant for mining operations located in the Southeast region of Brazil, which concentrates most part of the country's population as well as most part of the mining facilities, but a small portion of the water available in the territory. This paper presents a case study of selection of sustainable water management strategies for a mining complex located in this region. A stepwise process for incorporating environmental risks into the decision-making using a multi-criteria approach and the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was developed and applied in this case study, with corporate image, representing part of the social dimension, environmental and economic as the main decision criteria. This stepwise process proved to be a robust tool for supporting the evaluation and selection of alternatives in the case study, with potential to be used in other corporate decision contexts where environmental risks are relevant. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper reports the formulation and application of a framework of catchment-level water resource management indicators designed to integrate environmental, economic and social aspects of sustainability. The framework of nine indicators was applied to the River Dee and River Sinos catchments in Scotland and Brazil, respectively, following an indicator selection process that involved inputs from water management professionals in both countries, and a pilot exercise in Scotland. The framework was found to capture a number of key sustainability concerns, and was broadly welcomed by water resource managers and experts as a means of better understanding sustainable water resource management. Issues relating to poor water quality and public water supply were particularly prominent in the findings for the Sinos, while findings for the Dee suggested that more attention might be focused on building institutional capacity and public participation in catchment management. The use of some proxy indicators was required in both catchments due to poor data availability, and this problem may hinder the further development of indicator frameworks that attempt to better integrate environmental, economic and social dimensions of sustainability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Water resources management is meant to solve problems caused by the intensive use of this resource which is the consequence of economic and population growth. Water resources management is also responsible for preserving hydrological, biological and chemical functions of ecosystems, as well as ensuring that this resource will be maintained with adequate supply for future generations. In Brazil, a country with continental dimensions, streamflow gauge coverage is far from satisfactory. Therefore, the hydrological regionalization techniques are an option to estimate hydrological information in regions with few or no data. This methodology is based on the spatial similarity of functions, variables and parameters that tolerate this transference. The number of regionalization models and the need for ease of access to hydrological data transformed comparative studies of streamflow regionalization methodologies into an important topic of hydrology in Brazil. For this reason, the objective of this paper is to assess the models settled by Liazi et al. (1988), IGAM (2012) and Wolff et al. (2014) related to the variables Q 7,10 , Q 90 , Q 95 and Q ‾ in the upper Jaguari River basin, which is located between Minas Gerais and São Paulo States, and represents an important affluent to the Cantareira System. Firstly, Q 7,10 , Q 90 , Q 95 and Q ‾ were calculated using the historical flow data from five fluviometric stations located in Jaguari River basin. Then, these same variables were estimated using the regionalization methodologies proposed by Liazi et al. (1988), IGAM (2012) and Wolff et al. (2014). In order to determine the best hydrological regionalization method for the upper Jaguari River basin, the flow rates results calculated with the historical series were compared to those estimated by the models. Liazi et al. (1988) presented the best performance when compared to the other two methods. Its behavior was classified as very good by the index of agreement (d), the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) and the coefficient of determination (R2). IGAM (2012) exhibited an unsatisfactory fit for the statistical indicators of NSE and PBIAS. On the other hand, this method was classified as very good when the coefficient of determination (R2) was analyzed. The proposal of hydrological regionalization of Wolff et al. (2014) presented an adjustment, classified by the index of agreement (d), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE), percentage bias (PBIAS), and coefficient of determination (R2) as unsatisfactory, in general. The graphical behavior, however, demonstrated a good potential for future use of this model. In conclusion, it is recommended to apply similar comparative studies in other important sub-basins located between Minas Gerais and São Paulo States in Brazil to corroborate or not with the presented results. • Models of hydrological information transfer using multiple regression and geostatistics techniques were tested. • The model that uses geostatistics has the potential to estimate the average streamflow. • The hydrologically homogenous areas, average annual precipitation and basin drainage area model presented the best performance for average flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]