Qualitative indicator of tensions in water use in territorial identities of rural and urban life: empirical evidence in the Metropolitan Region of Salvador, Bahia (Brazil)

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to understand the distribution of the empirical evidence that intends rural and urban ways of life in relation to the use of waters and territorial identities in the Metropolitan Region of Salvador (MRS), Bahia, Brazil. A methodology based on the identification of territorial tensions, observed from 2005 to 2015, regarding the dispute over water use in the MRS, called Qualitative Indicators of Water Use Tension (QIWT). The use of QIWT allowed the identification of evidences and categorization of tensions in the use of water in the MRS, that is, interpretative and analytical methodological categories of empirical events in order to assign them phenomenon content and from then on to typify them. There was a predominance of tension by the appropriation of water (T-1), especially in the areas of greater demand for water for urban-industrial uses. The tension of the uses of water in cultural activities (T-3), the least frequent, confirmed the permanence counter-hegemonic the rural in the metropolitan space and revealed a clear potential for human development and nature conservation, because such uses demand good environmental conditions of the springs and sources of water supply. The application of the QIWT revealed a dimension of social reality, which emerged from the notions of rural and metropolitan rurality in its relationship with the use of water, ignored in the public policies of the MRS, whose environmental issue could be re-signified in the space of the metropolis as rural-urban.