Urban renaturalization and regeneration of urban rivers aiming for environmental justice in low-income and racialized communities: The case of Mané Dendê in Salvador (Bahia, Brazil)

Abstract

The emergence of climate change requires effective public policies for the governance of water resources in urban environments, with the aim of guaranteeing water availability in large cities. The main objective of the study carried out in Mané Dendê, a stream in the Cobre River basin, located in Salvador (Bahia, Brazil), was to evaluate a process of urban renaturalization as a strategy for recovering watercourses in a peripheral, low-income, and unequal area, using nature-based solutions and blue-green infrastructures. The methodological procedures were based on bibliographical research and analysis, statistical and cartographic data collection, as well as field research. The Cobre River basin represents the last water source with good water quality indices in Salvador, the only exception being its tributary Mané Dendê. The importance and urgency of regenerating this water body are evident, in order to guarantee water availability, increase water quality, and provide leisure spaces for the community, which is mostly low-income and racialized. The technical dimension of the action to renaturalize the Mané Dendê was problematized through questions of environmental justice. The interventions of the Mané Dendê Basin Requalification Project represent a road project that values the interconnection of transport modes in the city and disregards the socio-environmental aspect, creating more impermeable areas, removing areas of riparian forest, and keeping the main river polluted and channeled, not meeting sustainability standards.