São Paulo: From water city to dry metropolis

Abstract

São Paulo, the largest metropolis in the southern hemisphere, is located on a territory with an extremely rich hydrography. The Mapogafias Urbanas Study Group (FAU-USP) has produced a map based on historical documents showing the natural hydrography formed by hundreds of streams, creeks and large rivers. This map is contrasted with the current hydrography. It is easy to see that urbanisation has erased the vast majority of these watercourses, although it is clear that they are still present on the outskirts. However, the maps don't show, but the indicators do, the urban precariousness of these regions and the rivers surrounded by degraded environments. This work proposes observation and reflection on these regions based on the actions of the communities that live there to conserve and improve their environments, with special attention to water. Its main objective is to demonstrate the importance of environmental collectives, which although they are in communities that have done very little to bring us to the current environmental dramas, do a lot to preserve the environmental and landscape quality of their territories; thus contributing to the debate and public policies that consider urban construction far beyond productivism, which incorporates the cultural and environmental dimension of urban space. 

In order to carry out this work, GeMAP has been following and mapping the work of these groups (Ecoativa and Imargem) in the far south of the city for eight years, an action-research project based on the shared construction of knowledge.