Water resource management knowledge transfer through distance education: UNITAU’s experience Targa, M.S.*, Dias, N.W.**, Batista, G.T.*** *Graduate Program in Environmental Science, Universidade de Taubaté, Est. Dr. Jose Luiz Cembranelli, 5000, Taubaté, SP, Brazil CEP 12081-010, Email
[email protected] **Graduate Program in Environmental Science, Universidade de Taubaté, Est. Dr. Jose Luiz Cembranelli, 5000, Taubaté, SP, Brazil CEP 12081-010, Email
[email protected] ***Graduate Program in Environmental Science, Universidade de Taubaté, Est. Dr. Jose Luiz Cembranelli, 5000, Taubaté, SP, Brazil CEP 12081-010, Email
[email protected] Keywords: Water resource management, post-graduate distance education, technical training.
INTRODUCTION Brazilian environmental policies have being developed, in more recent years, with the objective of better match economic development and environmental protection as well as improve the population’s quality of life. In the 1990s the government created the Ministry of the Environment and its Water Resources Secretary (SRH/MMA) both through the Law Number 9433/97 that established the National Water Resource Policies (ANA, 2007). Also in the 1990s the government implemented the Law of Directives and Basis for National Education (LDB 9394/96) that established important measures for education management, financing, and pedagogy organization (Brazil, 1996). Both, government water resource and education policies, were consolidated in a new common nucleus in the form of professional education (technical training) promoted by the National Plan for Water Resources. This plan defines the creation of new technical training programs in water resource management designed to capacitate human resources in government (federal, state, and municipal) and civil society. The project described in this article was designed to capacitate professionals that deal with water resource issues, had undergraduate degrees, and work in state organizations and public institutions. This post-graduate course focused on professionals that work and live in the Central-western region of Brazil and had strong potential to get involved in water resource management activities.
DATA AND METHODS The course was developed in partnership with the University of Brasilia (UnB) and the University of Taubaté (UNITAU). The course was structured in 13 modules with 30 hours each at distance education mode and one module with 104 hours total at face-to-face meetings. The students received printed learning materials and CD-ROMs during the first face-to-face meeting in Brasilia, DF. Classes, activities, interactive quizzes, chat sessions, additional reading materials, asynchronous communication, access controls, and student participation evaluation were all implemented through the distance education management platform called TelEduc (2002). This platform was developed by the Nucleus of Informatics and Distance Education (NIED) of the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Modules implemented covered the following topics: Water Resource Management; Water Resources Use and Legislation; Waste Treatment and Destination; Scientific Method and Management Skills; Land Use and Hydrographic Basin Management; Meteorology, Weather Forecast, and Climate; Water Quality and Wastewater Treatment; Hydrologic Statistics; Surface Hydrology; Environmental Hydrogeology; GIS Applied to Water Resources; Environmental Impact Evaluation in Hydrographic Basins; Face-to-Face Meetings; and Final Project. During the Face-to-Face Meetings module several activities were undertaken that included practical exercises, field visits, and personal examinations (Targa, 2004). Practical activities were implemented having Pipiripau Hydrographic Basin as study area. This basin covers 18,884 hectares with predominately conventional agriculture (grains), degraded pasture, irrigated agriculture, horticulture, and orchards land uses. Some portions of the basin were covered with dry land vegetation (cerrado), natural grasslands and riparian forest. The average property size in this basin is 130 hectares. The basin also has a dam for withdrawing surface water for treatment and urban supply (Chaves et al., 2004). All this variety of land use and land cover types made possible to provide students with a rich
experience in terms of developing field data collection, diagnostics, physical characterizations, stream water flow measurements, and water quality tests. Final results of this distance education course included a completion rate of 66% (33 students) from the number of students that started the course. From those 33 graduates, 80% worked in water resource related institutions situated in the Federal District (DF) where Brazil’s capital (Brasilia) is located. Their background had the following distribution: Biology (25%), Geography (16%), Geology (9%), Management (13%), Agronomy (3%), Forest Engineering (6%), Civil Engineering (6%), Chemistry (3%), and other (19%) divided in 6 careers. A total of twelve books were produced based on the learning materials developed for each module. Thirty three monographs covered issues related to water resource and hydrographic basin management, that included: water use concessions; hydrographic basin as a pedagogic project; challenges for water management; pluvial drainage and impervious surfaces; spatial ordering; land use problems; participative water management; participative water planning; social mobilization and water management; social function of trash in basins; climate variation and sediment transport; hydrologic and hydrogeologic studies; investments in water resource science; preservation area management councils; physical characterization of hydrographic basins; improved usage of water resources; environmental perception in education; conservation units; domestic trash; floristic survey in the cerrado; spring recuperation and sustainable management; solid residue treatment; water contemplation, recreation and leisure; water quality monitoring; wastewater use; urban sprawl; recuperation and participative management; environmental education; fishing resources; hydrogeologic mapping; and land use occupation in hydrographic basins.
CONCLUSIONS Implementation of this project was significant for the following reasons: democratization of the access to water resource science knowledge; dissemination of hydrographic planning and management knowledge based on environmentally friendly practices and experiences linked to water quality and quantity improvement; diffusion of issues presented through discussions in hydrographic basin committees in the central-western region; and improvement of hydrographic basin committees’ capacity toward conservation and recuperation of water resources in Brazil (as exemplified by the experiences obtained by the team of professors in the southeastern region of the country, especially in the Paraiba dos Sul River Basin Committee – CBH-PS).
References Chaves, H. M., Braga, Jr. B.; Domingues, A.F. Quantificação dos benefícios e compensações do "Programa do Produtor de água" (ANA): I Teoria. Revista Brasileira de Recursos Hídricos, v.9, n.3, p.5-14, 2004. Brasil, 1996. Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional - Lei nº 9.394, de 20 de dezembro de 1996. Electronic document available at http://portal.mec.gov.br/arquivos/pdf/ldb.pdf. Consulted on 25 of August, TelEduc, 2002. Ambiente de Ensino a distância. NIED, UNICAMP. Campinas –SP 2002. Electronic document available at http://hera.nied.unicamp.br/teleduc.. Targa, M. S., 2004. Curso de Especialização por educação a distância (latu sensu) em gestão de recursos hídricos e manejo de bacias hidrográficas. Targa, M.S. Coord. Taubaté, Universidade de Taubaté-SP, CD-ROOM. Taubaté: Universidade de Taubaté.
