Social engagement as principle for creating a Waterway Sub-Basis Committee Project and Institutional Integration of Water Planning

practices of the water-sensitive community of Serrinha do Paranoá (DF)

Abstract

This work proposes ways to strengthen relations between the socially engaged community and water planning institutions. In this sense, it is understood that social participation is not fully inserted in territorial and water planning and these, in turn, maintain this departmentalized structure, facilitating the implementation of urban and rural planning models that are not committed to social and environmental realities. Based on the water-sensitive planning model and the principle of water-sensitive communities, we infer the need to form a socio-political capital within a participatory and institutionally integrated planning structure with actors connected to the territory with decision-making power. Based on the concept of territorial praxis in which social engagement is understood as a transforming expression of territoriality, we recognize the communities in the rural areas of Serrinha do Paranoá as a socio-political body engaged in the defense of waters through the analytical description of their history of social engagement in 4 stages. This study showed that this community demonstrated commitment by assuming the functions of a hydrographic subbasin committee for its performance based on socio-environmental and political claims.