Participatory management of stakeholders in spring area: an approach to multicriteria analysis

ABSTRACT

The enactment of Federal Act nº 9433, on January 8^th, 1997, was a political and technical milestone in water resources management in Brazil, by instituting the National Water Resources Policy which, in its foundations, stablishes decentralized management with the involvement of official authorities, customers and communities. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to set out sustainability indicators for a spring area in the municipality of Paranavaí, located in the state of Paraná, Brazil, using an approach based on the participatory management of stakeholders associated with multi-criteria analysis tools for decision-making support. The spring is located in an Environmental Protection Area, named APA Arara. The methodology consisted in cognitive mapping and the Measuring Attractiveness by a Categorical-Based Evaluation Technique (MACBETH) approach, applied during a decision conference attended by a number of agents directly affected by, and strongly interested in, the issue, such as managing agencies, rural producers, real estate businessmen, councilors, representatives of higher education institutions, among others. By the end of the decision conference, 14 indicators were defined and their weights stablished. The obtained results provide the basis for more efficient water resources management, as they led to the most committed solution by involving many different stakeholders. Furthermore, they showed that the combined use of cognitive maps and the MACBETH approach enabled the setting of sustainability indicators for the APA Arara in a transparent and effective way, emphasizing their success in the participatory water resources management.

Keywords:
measuring attractiveness by a categorical-based evaluation technique; cognitive map; water resources management; sustainable development in spring area.