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COMMUNITY CASE STUDY article

Front. Sustain.
Sec. Sustainable Organizations
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frsus.2024.1401440
This article is part of the Research Topic Rainwater Harvesting in Urban Settings View all articles

The One Million Cisterns Programme - a viability assessment of community rainwater management in Brazil

Provisionally accepted
Pedro Pablo Cardoso Castro Pedro Pablo Cardoso Castro 1,2Maya Vachkova Maya Vachkova 1*Nirvia Ravena Nirvia Ravena 3Nircele Veloso Nircele Veloso 3
  • 1 University of Exeter, Exeter, England, United Kingdom
  • 2 Center for System Studies, Faculty of Business, Law and Politics, University of Hull, Hull, England, United Kingdom
  • 3 Federal University of Pará, Belém, Pará, Brazil

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This research investigated the governance of the national community-based rainwater harvesting initiative, known as One Million Cisterns (P1MC), within the local context of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. The initiative aimed to empower communities by providing water collection infrastructures and involved over 3,000 civil society organisations and various local and national bodies. Our study observed that while some communities thrived, others faced challenges in adopting and maintaining the cisterns. Focusing on communities near the city of Belém, Pará, within a specific Protected Extractivist Reserve Areas (RESEX), we explored the factors behind success and failure in managing rainwater systems. By applying Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IADF) and Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM), we assessed local institutional arrangements and community self-organisation. Through questionnaires and interviews with 109 end-users between 2018 and 2022, we identified two distinct organisational structures and their associated pathologies. The combined use of IADF and VSM provided valuable insights into the structural and institutional dynamics affecting system adoption, maintenance, and governance. Our findings emphasise the importance of a comprehensive framework integrating these analytical tools for designing effective social programs in Brazil. This study contributes to the ongoing discourse on sustainable development and resource management in the Amazon region, highlighting the significance of tailored governance structures and community engagement in addressing complex environmental challenges.

    Keywords: viable system model 1, institutional analysis and development framework2, rainwater harvesting3, governance4, civil society5

    Received: 15 Mar 2024; Accepted: 29 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Cardoso Castro, Vachkova, Ravena and Veloso. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Maya Vachkova, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4PY, England, United Kingdom

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