Urban water management for better urban life in Latin America

Regional overviewUrban water management for better urban life in Latin AmericaTerence R.Lee*Valdes Vergara360,dpto.71,Santiago,ChileReceived15October1999;received in revised form26May2000;accepted8August2000AbstractWater management in the cities of Latin America remains far from optimum.This paper examines current issues providing speci®c examples of the problems faced and highlights the policies that have been adopted by governments.The solutions that are being adopted or proposed are examined critically and recommendations are made for future policies for the sustainable man-agement of urban water resources.Ó2000Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.Keywords:Urban;Water management;Latin America;Private participation;InstitutionsA modern city is the exact opposite of what every-one wantsOscar WildeMumford,in his classic work on the city,opines that Ôthe innovations that beckon urgently are not in the extension and perfection of physical equipmentÕ(Mumford,1961).This may be true of cities in devel-oped countries characterised by the high quality of their urban infrastructure.In these cities,there is universal access to reliable drinking water and to sewerage,al-though sewage is still not adequately treated.The streets are well paved and well lit and there is ample green space and other recreational facilities.In the cities of the de-veloping countries,however,including those of Latin America,the city is more akin to the description con-tained in Wilde's aphorism.The urban infrastructure tends at best to be inadequate and badly maintained and,too frequently,all but non-existent.The population of the world is now predominantly and increasingly urban.In Latin America,particularly in the poorer countries of the region,the rate of ur-banisation is still rising.In the richer and larger coun-tries,urban agglomerations of population and economic activities have developed to a size rarely known histor-ically.In some countries of the region,almost90%of the population now lives in urban areas(Table1).It is not surprising to®nd that this rate of growth in the urban population and the consequent large concentra-tion of population are having serious negative conse-quences for the environment,in general,and for the water resources,in particular.One sad example of such a consequence was the outbreak of cholera in the early nineties,the®rst occurrence of the disease in the region for almost a century.The spread of the epidemic was aided by the de®cient sanitary infrastructure in many cities of the region(PAHO,1998).The cholera epidemic, however,only highlighted the generally appalling sani-tary conditions in much of urban Latin America. Obviously,this growth in the urban population has made cities increasingly important as users and con-sumers of water.However,despite the increase in the importance of urban water use,institutional structures to manage the water resources compromised by urban growth or to ensure the e cient provision of water-related services have not evolved along with the growing complexity of the water management issues being faced. On the contrary,in many countries,the existing insti-tutional systems due to over-centralisation,bureaucratic ine ciencies and lack of sustainable®nance tend to act as obstacles to e ective urban water management.Many institutions,in fact,passively allow the problems to increase and fail to create spaces for the consideration of solutions.Fortunately,recently in a number of countries,e orts have been made to tackle this problem through institu-tional reform.There have been attempts to change the approach to water management through incorporatingUrban Water2(2000)71±78 *Fax:+56-2-664-3806.E-mail address:tlee@netline.cl(T.R.Lee).1462-0758/00/$-see front matterÓ2000Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. PII:S1462-0758(00)00041-8more participants into the management decision-making process.This paper will critically review the state of urban water management in Latin America,discuss the process of institutional reform currently underway in many countries and propose some principles for achieving better management.1.Urbanisation and the water resourceThe changes in the spatial distribution and in the structure of human activities related to increasing ur-banisation have serious repercussions for the water re-source in terms of both its quantity and its quality. Moreover,the concentration of the population in cities has occurred along with other important changes in water use,due to the changes that have occurred in the structure of the economy.For example,despite the in-creasing importance of services,one important element is the continuing growth in manufacturing industry and the changes in its structure and consequent water de-mands.The cities of Latin America,both large and small, possess common characteristics in their relationship to the water resource.In general,there is a rising demand of water for urban use,leading to the exploitation of ever more distant water sources,an increasing occupa-tion of¯ood plains and a growing con¯ict between the recreational demands on nearby water bodies and their increasing pollution.At the same time,in many cities, there are serious de®ciencies in the provision of water-related services.Increasing waste discharges and the de®cient infrastructure combine to produce serious local ±and not so local±pollution,even where wastes are discharged into the sea(ECLAC,1990a,b).The most dramatic examples of the e ect of de®cient infrastruc-ture on the quality of the environment are to be found in the outer suburbs of the largest metropolitan areas.This is the case even in some of the most prosperous,Buenos Aires,Mexico City and S~a o Paulo.In fact,most cities of more than100,000population have neighbourhoods bereft of services.The growth of the urban population brings other consequences for water resources.The concentration of population and industry demands the draining of marshlands and the protection of the built-up areas in ¯oodplains from¯ooding.Runo increases and its pattern changes as the paved areas expand.Well known examples include the expansion of Mexico City in the bed of Lake Texcoco,the®lling in of the shores of Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro,and the expansion of Guayaquil at the expense of the marshlands of the Guayas Estuary.Almost everywhere,increased urbani-sation has been accompanied by the canalisation of streams in many cities,either explicitly or de facto,and the sustained expansion of building into the¯oodplains of rivers and tidal zones.One particular challenge imposed by the increasing urbanisation of the region is the increasing frequency of multiple and successive use of watercourses.Successive use a ects both the river regime and water quality and increases the need for management intervention to control and regulate¯ows.To take one example,the Maipo River and its tributaries in Chile are used forTable1The changing nature of urbanisation in Latin America aCountry Urban primacy index b Percentage of population±urbanAround1970Around199519701995 Argentina 4.0 3.57888 Bolivia 1.40.94161 Brazil0.80.95679 Chile 2.8 3.07584 Colombia0.9 1.05773 Costa Rica 5.4 4.74050 Cuba 2.5 2.46076 Ecuador 1.2 1.14059 Guatemala±9.63639 Honduras 1.8 1.62944 Mexico 2.7 2.05973 Nicaragua± 2.84763 Panama± 3.95056 Paraguay 6.053753 Peru 4.5 4.15771 Uruguay 4.77.98291 Venezuela 1.50.97286a Source:MacDonald,Otava,Simioni,and Komororizono(1998).b Notes:The urban primacy index is the ratio between the population of the largest city in a country and the next three largest. 72T.R.Lee/Urban Water2(2000)71±78hydro-electric power generation,white water recreation, water supply and irrigation in the upper part of the basin,for water supply,irrigation and as a receptor of urban wastes in its middle reaches and again for water supply and recreation in its lower course.In the context of successive use,the large demand for water-based recreation close to the city,particularly from the poor,is frequently overlooked.The recre-ational use of water demands high levels of water quality and the need,therefore,to protect water bodies from pollution.At the same time,recreational use itself can threaten the more fragile constituents of aquatic eco-systems,particularly in the upper reaches of a river basin.The need for control requires the construction of dams and reservoirs,river channelling and the building of other protection works,all of which modify the spatial and temporal pattern of¯ows.2.MagnitudesIt is estimated that between1950and2000,the population of Latin America and the Caribbean,will have expanded from159million to slightly over500million(CELADE,1999).The average rate of popula-tion increase reached a maximum of2.8%a year at the beginning of the1960s.It has declined since then to a current annual average of1.46%,and it is anticipated that it will decline even further to less than1%over the next25years(CELADE,1999).Over the last half cen-tury,there has also been a notable change in population distribution.The proportion of the population living in cities was only25%of the total in1950,rising to more than50%in1980and it is now over75%(CELADE, 1999).The rates of population growth have,in some cities in some periods,been over10%a year(Gallopin, Winograd,&G o mez,1991).In the majority of coun-tries,the average rate of expansion of the urban popu-lation has exceeded4%.The annual rate of growth has only been less than3%in Argentina,Chile and Uru-guay,the most urbanised countries of the region both in 1950and today.The increase in the urban population has been heavily concentrated in the largest urban centres.In1950,there were only four countries,Argentina,Chile,Cuba and Uruguay,in which over20%of the population lived in cities with over100,000inhabitants and there were only seven cities in the whole of Latin America with more than1,000,000inhabitants.Now,however,almost half the total population of the region is living in the46 largest metropolitan centres.During the®rst half of this century,the expansion of the urban population was almost entirely due to mi-gration,but now the main factor is the autochthonous growth of the urban population,itself.The in¯uence of the large migratory¯ows of the past is still noticeable in the marked social di erentiation found in the cities. Poverty has become or is becoming an urban phenom-enon in most countries of the region.The United Na-tions Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean(ECLAC)estimates that in most countries one-third to two-thirds of the urban population is poor. Only in Argentina,Chile,Costa Rica and Uruguay do the poor make up less than20%of the urban population (Table2).Low incomes are exacerbated by the de®-ciencies in housing and public services,including water supply and sanitation.3.The state of urban water managementThe di culties faced in rising to the challenges posed by the historically rapid process of urbanisation can be seen in all aspects of the management of water resources and water-related services.3.1.Water supply and sanitationIn only a few cities of Latin America,the entire population do enjoy a house connection to a centralised water supply network,and in even fewer,does the whole population have sewerage services.The level of service provision is in some respects relatively good,with only 20%of the total urban population of the region still dependent on public taps,wells or tank trucks(Fig.1). This still means,however,that more than60,000,000 people lack a secure source of potable water.Table2Latin America,urban poverty,17countries,1997aCountry Percentage of the populationIndigent orextremely poorTotal poorArgentina(GreaterBuenos Aires)313Bolivia1947Brazil(1996)825Chile(1996)419Colombia1539Costa Rica517 Dominican Republic1132Ecuador1950El Salvador1239 Guatemala(1984)2348Honduras3767Mexico(1996)1038 Nicaragua3666Panama925Paraguay(Asuncion)834Uruguay16 Venezuela(1994)1441a Source:ECLAC(1999)calculations from the household surveys of the respective countries.T.R.Lee/Urban Water2(2000)71±7873Compounding the lack of service provision in many cities,the actual supply of water to the public system is irregular.This is due to a variety of factors.In some cases,demand exceeds the capacity of the system to produce water.There is,in addition,often a lack of maintenance of the distribution network which leads to very high levels of losses:in a typical system these are estimated to vary between 40%and 60%of production (Yepes,1990).Water supply and sewerage companies,almost all publicly owned until recently,have been managed as though they were construction companies with an emphasis on system expansion and new con-struction.Preventive maintenance has been unusual and even repairs to the network have only been made when the problems they posed reached emergency levels (Lo-rena,Abdala,&Shirley,1998).A corollary has been equally poor commercial management with unrealistic tari s,bills uncollected for years on end,numerous il-legal connections and generally very low commercial discipline.A recent investment report concludes that only in Chile is there is a tari system which generates su cient revenue to support foreseeable investment re-quirements (Water Online,2000).In general,it would be reasonable to say that water supply and sewerage companies have been seriously ine cient in the majority of the cities in the region.In many cities,as the public systems have not pro-vided water,the population in has been forced to adopt other alternatives.In Buenos Aires,it was estimated that prior to the concession of the system to the private company,Aguas Argentinas ,almost three million people got their water from individual wells or had organised their own systems through cooperatives or small private companies.None of these solutions provided any guarantee of the quality of water obtained.In Buenos Aires,the population has access to an aquifer.In other cities,for example in Lima,Peru,this alternative is not available and in the absence of a public supply,thepeople must depend on a water carrier and pay up to one-quarter of their income for water of very doubtful quality (Webb,1992).The health and environmental consequences of poor water supply are compounded by the lack of adequate excreta disposal in most cities.De®cient disposal of wastes has two aspects:®rst,the lack of house connec-tions to a waterborne sewerage system or a septic tank and second,the lack of adequate disposition of domestic and industrial wastes collected by the existing sewerage systems.Very few cities even have a rational network for sewage collection and disposal.No large city treats more than 10%of its sewage and only Chile has a national policy,using private investment,to treat all sewage in the foreseeable future.It is commonly the case,partic-ularly in the larger cities,that sewage is discharged into the nearest watercourse.This results in the extreme pollution of the majority of streams passing through cities and many have become no more than open sewers.It is common that urban rivers are anaerobic due to the magnitude of the sewage transported.To take one ex-ample,and not the worst,that of Santiago,Chile,in 1990:it was estimated that the average ¯ow of sewage into the Mapocho River was 9.6m 3/s,while the average natural ¯ow,before the river enters the urban area,isonly 6.6m 3/s (G omez,1991).It is expected that the ¯ow of sewage will have doubled by 2010;however,current plans call for the sewage to be treated by that year (El Mercurio,2000).In those cities with major areas lacking sewage net-works,the widespread use of septic tanks and latrines has resulted in a serious degree of pollution of the groundwater (Brunstein,1988).This is a serious concern as in many of these same cities,groundwater from the shallowest aquifers is an important source of water supply,due to the parallel failure to expand water sup-ply systems.3.2.Storm drainageStorm drainage systems are found only in the centres of the oldest cities of the region.In many cities,when it rains,there are ¯oods and the streets carry the storm drainage.As much of Latin America enjoys a tropical or subtropical climate,it also enjoys abundant rainfall and the consequent runo can be considerable.On the av-erage,the urban runo is estimated to be more than 1m 3/min for each square kilometre and in some cities,it reaches more than 4m 3/min.Some of this runo ,besides ¯ooding streets,inevitably enters the sanitary sewage systems provoking hydraulic overcharging and gener-ating back ¯ooding of sewage.Urban ¯ooding continues to increase in intensity.As a typical example,in Buenos Aires,the existing storm drainage system only serves the area of theCapitalFig.1.Access to water supply and sewerage,Latin America,1960±1992.(Source :author based on national data.)74T.R.Lee /Urban Water 2(2000)71±78Federal,which forms the centre of metropolitan Buenos Aires.However,it now houses less than one-third of the total population and accounts for even less of the ur-banised area.Over the last10±15years,major¯oods have occurred with increasing frequency,as the increase in the built-up area has not been accompanied by ex-tensions to the storm drainage system.In fact,the ca-pacities of the channels of many of the streams in the metropolitan region have been severely reduced(Fede-rovisky,1990).Frequent¯ooding due to the lack of storm drainage is aggravated by often being accompanied by landslides.It is estimated that in recent years,at least20%of the urban¯oods in Latin America have been accompanied by landslides(ECLAC,1990a,b).3.3.Water qualityThe consequence of the lack of sewerage,the absence of sewage treatment and uncontrolled storm drainage is the pollution of all water bodies,including groundwater aquifers,in the cities of Latin America and adjacent areas.The state of water quality in the water bodies of the region is primarily determined by the waste¯ows from the cities.Repeatedly,reports show that the levels of pollution, as measured by the levels of faecal coliform,is extremely high in all the water bodies close to urban areas.Ex-amples include the Bogota River in Colombia,both up and downstream of Bogota,the Maipo River and its tributaries in Chile as they pass through and beyond Santiago,the Tiet e in the Sa~o Paulo metropolitan region of Brazil,any water body in Buenos Aires,Guanabara Bay,Cartagena Bay,and the Paci®c Ocean in front of any major city.However,in Chile most coastal cities now have primary waste treatment.The data on pollu-tion is very limited.The most recent regional report was over10years ago and it showed that,based on infor-mation on24Central and South American rivers,water pollution appeared to be worse in the region than in other parts of the world.The proportion of with a count of more than100,000faecal coliform per100ml of water in the mid-80s was double that of rivers studied else-where(WHO/UNEP,1987).An issue associated with the discharge of untreated wastes from the cities is the use of the polluted water downstream for irrigation.This is a common practice in many parts of the region and was one of the contrib-uting factors to the propagation of cholera in1991and 1992.Santiago,Chile provides a classic example of this situation.The index of faecal coliforms varies between 100,000and1,000,000per100ml in the waters of the Mapocho River,which are used to irrigate fresh vege-tables for the city's population.The relationship be-tween the pollution of the river and public health in Santiago had been well established in the late1940s (Chile,1977).Santiago has always had a very high rate of gastroenteric diseases,although there is universal access to high quality drinking water and to sewerage. However,only with the outbreak of cholera in Peru in 1991,were e ective measures taken to restrict the growing of vegetable crops for fresh consumption in the areas irrigated from the Mapocho River.Once the controls were in place,the number of typhoid cases fell from an annual average of3000to around300(World Bank,1994).4.What is being doneIn general,in Latin America,the water management in urban areas remains far from optimum despite the progress that has been made in many cities in extending basic water services.It is precisely in the urbanised re-gions of Latin America where the use of water is most intense and competitive.Since1990,the greater recog-nition of the de®ciencies in the existing system of water management has led to changes in the way water is managed in the cities of Latin America.In part,these changes re¯ect the revision that is being made in water management policies as a whole.The most important of these changes has been the dismantling of the large na-tional bureaucracies formerly responsible for water management and the provision of water-related services. In most countries this has meant,at least at a®rst stage, a decentralisation of these responsibilities to the mu-nicipalities,although in some cases,particularly in the federal countries,the decentralisation has been to state or regional levels of government. Decentralisation of responsibilities for water services to the municipality brings with it a new set of problems even as it brings responsibility for services closer to the user.The typical municipality has very few resources with which to confront the multitude of responsibilities that it faces.Adding further responsibilities,even po-tentially revenue generating ones,is a questionable policy.Moreover,paradoxically it has tended to be the countries,such as Ecuador,Peru and Venezuela,with weaker municipal governments that have delegated the responsibility for water services.In Argentina,Brazil and Chile,where at least the larger urban municipalities have more resources,the provision of water services is the responsibility of large regional-based companies. The delegation of responsibilities within the public sector has been accompanied,in many cases,by the transfer of water services to private management.Gen-erally,this has been done through either management contracts or concession arrangements based on the models used in France and Spain.Management con-tracts have been used most widely in Mexico,largely in the form of contracts for speci®c services in the form of build,operate and transfer contracts for treatmentT.R.Lee/Urban Water2(2000)71±7875plants.In Mexico City,however,a more traditional type of management contract is being used.In Argentina, concessions have been widely used,normally being awarded to either French or Spanish companies often in consortium.The concession held by Aguas Argentinas in Buenos Aires is the largest in the world.Only in Chile, the water supply companies have been sold to private investors.The government,however,maintains a sub-stantial minority holding.The introduction of private capital and managers into the provision of water services has had mixed results so far.In Argentina,where private participation has the longest of its short history,there has been an undeniable improvement in the e ciency in many services and a notable extension of service.At the same time,there have been serious problems related,in part,to the in-experience of governments in regulating contracts with private companies.In Buenos Aires,the federal gov-ernment has bypassed the regulator a number of times to directly renegotiate aspects of the concession(Garcia, 1998).This experience,along with others,raises the question of whether even large municipalities are capa-ble of regulating large multinational corporations with long experience in concessions and other contracts for urban services.It highlights the complexities involved in opening public services to private participation and shows,as do the di culties with BOT contracts in Mexico,that private provision is no simple solution to the lack of investment in and ine cient management of public services.The privatisation of sanitation services is perhaps the simplest reform to carry out.If successful,it will im-prove the state of the water resources in and around the cities and metropolitan areas of Latin America and improve the quality of life of the urban population.It can do little,however,to resolve the management of the issues of increasing and successive use of water bodies. Attempts have been and are being made to revive the idea of managing water on the basis of river basin in-stitutions.Such institutions,when promoted for re-gional development,did not prosper in the centralised bureaucratic states of Latin America,but the process of governmental reform will perhaps permit them a better future(Lee,1990).This time around the institutions being created for river basin management are not en-tirely dominated by public sector institutions,but in some cases at least,have real user representation. The importance of user representation and,even more,of user domination of river basin institutions lies precisely in the need for the region to decentralise gov-ernment.The historical domination of the public sector in most water management institutions led inevitably, every time attempts were made to introduce river basin arrangements,to these institutions succumbing to bureaucratic in®ghting.There are examples in almost all the countries where such institutions have been introduced.The only exception was perhaps Mexico where the political domination of the Secretar õa de Recursos Hidr a ulicos was such that it could successfully impose its will on the rest of the bureaucracy.The local populations were not,however,always so easily coerced. For example,the army had to intervene in1967to enforce the decisions of the Grijalva River Commission (ECLAC,1979).However,none of the earlier examples of river basin institutions,even the relatively successful ones in Co-lombia,were speci®cally concerned with the problems of urban water management as a whole.For example,even when the Corporaci o n Aut o noma Regional(CAR)for the Bogota River was given the responsibility for water management,this was restricted to the co-ordination of the management of the stream¯ow to regulate¯ows, primarily for irrigation and power generation.It had little in¯uence over the management of water quality, largely due to the di culty of®nancing sewage treat-ment for the city of Bogota(Lee,1999).More recently,in the State of S~a o Paulo in Brazil,the 1992sanitation law allows for the creation of a state-wide administrative system for water management in which all state institutions,the municipalities,private companies and the users participate.The law also al-lowed for the creation of water management institutions on a river basin basis(Costa,1992).Each commission is autonomous and can raise funds from its participating members.Many of these commissions will be responsi-ble for highly urbanised river basins.Due to delays in making these bodies operational,it still remains to be seen how e ective these arrangements will be.5.Discerning a solutionAt the Conference on Environment and Development in R õo de Janeiro in1992,the governments adopted the Declaration on Environment and Development,better known as Agenda21(United Nations,1992).Chapter 18of the Agenda21contains a section on the issue of water and sustainable urban development.In this sec-tion,the discussion emphasises the urgent need for better water management for urban use so as to con-tribute to the reduction of poverty,to the improvement of health and to the control of pollution.The discussion ends by establishing,as an objective,the ecologically rational management of the water resource,as well as establishing quantitative goals for water supply,sewer-age and the control of e uents.Statements such as these made in documents origi-nating in major international conferences have to be taken with a degree of scepticism.After all,many gov-ernments sign such documents with little idea of how they might put the exhortations into practice.This can be seen clearly from the experience over the past half76T.R.Lee/Urban Water2(2000)71±78。