Artificialização de cursos d’água urbanos e transferência de passivos ambientais entre territórios municipais

reflexões a partir do caso do Ribeirão Arrudas, Região Metropolitana de Belo Horizonte - MG

Abstract

Although the historical and traditional structural interventions in urban water streams are increasingly challenged by the scientific community and civil society sectors, some Brazilian cities still insist on prioritizing this logic of artificiality in their political processes. The case of Belo Horizonte (MG) illustrates this perpetuation of policies of artificial changes of waterways in Brazil, being the channeling of Ribeirão Arrudas, main hydrographic axis of the city, one of the most significant interventions in the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte. Because of the fact that it has not been carried out from the perspective of metropolitan management, but under the logic of intra-municipal policies, this intervention has had by effect the manifestation of negative impacts on the territory of Sabará, once in that county the river drains back to the condition of a natural bed. Thus, from the conduction of a fieldwork, the consultation of specific literature, mapping and the development of a qualitative analysis, the objective of this article is, through the case of Ribeirão Arrudas in Belo Horizonte, to present reflections about socio-environmental effects of structural interventions in urban water streams, as well as municipal conflicts resulting from the transfer of environmental liabilities between municipalities.