This paper deals with Belém, in the State of Pará, Northern Brazil, a city where hydrography has been conditioning and defining the urban morphology, land uses, and the attributes of economic activities arranged territorially. Studying historical cases and contemporary urbanization phenomena close to water bodies (rivers, a bay, an estuary), it is possible to notice the dimension of water as landscape, vehicle, substance and resource. At the same time, waterfronts, hub ports, environmental engineering and water management represent cases of materialization and deepening of vetoes on the access to water and to the urban environment in general, in spite of the directives of the current environmental policy.
urbanization; water resources; environmental planning
