Avaliação da capacidade e atendimento da demanda hídrica local pelo reservatório da Barragem do Braga, Varzedo – BA

Abstract

The lack of data on small river basins is a common scenario throughout Brazil, which makes studies of water availability in specific regions difficult. In the case of rural supply, which most often uses alternative water supply systems to meet demands, the study of the source used is deficient due to the lack of specific hydrological information for the area. In this context, the Braga dam in VarzedoBa is inserted, a small dam built by the community itself in an unmonitored spring and responsible for supplying the communities of Braga, Melado I and Melado II. Given the importance of this hydraulic use for the region and the similarity of the situation in the rural sanitation scenario, the present work aimed to evaluate the water availability of the Braga dam reservoir in the current study period and in water drought scenarios, taking as a basis the drought that occurred in 2012 in the region. For the study, field research and hydrological data were collected. With this, the water balance of the reservoir was carried out by analyzing the demands for water (domestic, irrigation and animal watering) of the communities. The results show that the Braga dam reservoir can supply current demands in periods of regular rain, but in the case of hydrological drought it reaches more than 35% of the simulated time, the level corresponding to the dead volume, making it impractical to supply water to the population.