THE NATIONAL WATER RESOURCES POLICY AND WATER MANAGEMENT: CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE RURAL CONTEXT OF THE CANTAREIRA SYSTEM

Purpose: The National Water Resources Policy established foundations and instruments for the management of water resources in Brazil. Despite being considered one of the most advanced internationally, its effectiveness is questioned for water management in rural contexts where small users predominate. The article presents elements of water management conducted by rural landowners, seeking to analyze how these elements approach or distance themselves from the foundations and instruments of the National Water Resources Policy. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 151 rural landowners who use water resources in the context of the supply sources of the Cantareira Water Production System. The results indicate that the water sources accessed by users are the central reference that supports decisions on local water management, which distances itself from the watershed as a management unit, as proposed by law. Not based on a scientific conception, users mobilize specific indicators to determine the quality of the water consumed. Perceptions of the private domain and common good surrounding water sources do not fully align with the understanding of water as a public good. Furthermore, the notion of free access to and use of water also distances itself from any intention to charge for water in rural areas. It is concluded that the foundations and instruments of the National Water Resources Policy are not able to promote the management of water resources at the level of small sources and users, and that the perceptions and management practices of these users are far from what is established by law. The objective of the article is to present elements of water management conducted by rural landowners, seeking to analyze how these elements approach or distance themselves from the foundations and instruments of the National Water Resources Policy. Method/design/approach: The research is of a qualitative nature, of a descriptive nature, having been carried out empirical research. For the empirical research, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 151 rural landowners who use water resources in the context of the supply sources of the Cantareira Water Production System. Results and conclusion: The results indicate that the water sources accessed by users are the central reference that supports decisions on local water management, which distances itself from the hydrographic basin as a management unit, as proposed by law. Not based on a scientific conception, users mobilize specific indicators to determine the quality of the water consumed. Perceptions of the private domain and common good surrounding water sources do not fully align with the understanding of water as a public good. Furthermore, the notion of free access to and use of water also distances itself from any intention to charge for water in rural areas. Research implications: From the analysis, it is highlighted that the fundamentals and official instruments of water resources management cannot influence the water management that occurs at the level of small rural users. The main implication of the study is to stimulate reflection on the need to build a policy that takes into account elements of local water management, seeking full management of water resources. Originality/value : The study seeks to contribute to the improvement of water resources management, in terms of local management aspects. The ways of acting of rural landowners need to be recognized, understood and valued, so it will be possible to promote sustainable water management in one of the most critical contexts for water security in the country.


INTRODUCTION
In Brazil, Law No. 9,433/1997  3 resources.The model set up by the NRP has provided the foundations and tools for a sustainable management of this vital resource.After 26 years of the creation of this policy many advances have been achieved, but the pertinence of its fundamentals and instruments to promote water management in rural contexts where autonomous users predominate, accessing small and diffuse water sources, is still in question.This policy is aimed primarily at large watercourses and users, which prevents the consideration of dimensions related to the management of small sources (Ribeiro & Galizoni, 2003).Data presented in Santos & Santana (2020) corroborate this view when they point out that approximately 31 million individuals living in rural areas depend on alternative family or community solutions for rural sanitation.This population quota builds numerous strategies for the management of water sources.
In view of this, it is important here to understand to what extent the local management strategies approach or distance themselves from the rationale and instruments proposed by the NRP, in order to reflect on their relevance for effective water management in certain rural contexts.This interest has turned to the context where the territory responsible for supplying the reservoirs of the Cantareira Water Production System is located.
The Cantareira System is the largest and most important supply system in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo (MRSP), responsible for almost half of the supply of this region, which is one of the most populous, industrialized and economically developed in Latin America.The territory that contributes to the supply of its reservoirs occupies 227,803.00hectares, covering 12 municipalities, four in the state of Minas Gerais and eight in the state of São Paulo (Uezu et al., 2017).
Most of this critical area for water security is under the management of the Piracicaba, Capivari and Jundiaí River Basin Committees (JCP Committees).The JCP Committees are among the most advanced in the implementation of the fundamentals and instruments for water management proposed by the NRP (Silva et al., 2017), therefore, such territory becomes highly relevant to the proposed study.
In this sense, the article aims to present elements of water management conducted by rural owners, seeking to analyze how they approach or distance themselves from the foundations and instruments proposed by the National Water Resources Policy.Specifically, it focuses on the perceptions of rural landowners about the quality and quantity of water from the sources they use, aiming to establish parallels with what the policy proposes; identifies the notions of water's domain and economic value by these users, understanding them as central foundations for local management; finally, it demonstrates how decision-making and conflict resolution processes at the local level escape the reach of the institutional apparatus created by the law for water management.

The Brazilian Model of Water Resources Management
The twentieth century marked a trajectory of changes in the theoretical and operational bases related to the management of water resources in Brazil.Such management involves the formulation of foundations, guidelines and instruments, the structuring of management systems and the taking of decisions with the objective of promoting the use, control and protection of water resources (Lanna, 1999).
Because of the social, economic and political changes that occurred in the national scenario between the 1930s and 1970s, the 1980s marked the emergence of a new model for water management (Libanius, 2014;Martins, 2015), called the "systemic model of participatory integration" (Lanna, 2001) or "integrated water management" (Libanius, 2014;Senra & Nascimento, 2017).
Inspired by French legislation, such a model had in the National Water Resources Policy (Law 9433, of January 8, 1997) its legal framework, which established foundations and instruments for the management of water resources (Martins, 2015).Among its foundations, water stands out as a public property; water as a limited natural resource, endowed with economic value; the river basin as a territorial unit for managing water resources; and, the participation of the Public Power, users and communities as indispensable for the decentralized management of water.These foundations support the instruments created for the management of water resources, namely: the Water Resources Plan; the framing of bodies of water in classes of use; the granting of the right to use water resources; the charging for the use of water resources; and the Information System on Water Resources (Brazil, 1997).
Firstly, it is opportune to point out that there is no private ownership of water in Brazil, and not even water is a Sunday asset of the Public Power, but a good of common use of the people (Yoshida, 2007).The public domain means that the public entity is the manager of the collective use good, therefore its use by the collectivity must be regulated by the public administration (Yoshida, 2007).The surface and ground water located in the national territory are the domain of the Union, the Federal District and the States (Brazil, 1997).
This basis of the law is the granting of the right to use water resources, which represents a conditional authorization for use that the government grants for a determined period to users of significant volumes of water.Therefore, the granting regime has as objectives to ensure the quantitative and qualitative control of water uses and the effective exercise of access rights (Brazil, 1997).
The PNRH established the demanding uses of concession and also the uses that are independent of the concession of the public power, which include the satisfaction of the needs of small rural population centers and the derivations, abstractions, releases and accumulations of water considered insignificant (Brazil, 1997).The cases of insignificant use are defined within each river basin, and the user needs to register the use with the responsible public body.
The foundation of water as a natural resource with economic value, derived from neoclassical environmental microeconomics, refers to the economic dimension as a guiding principle for water resource management (Martins, 2015).Water that has been understood as an infinite good, therefore a good of free access, is now understood as a limited resource of competitive interest (Woodhouse & Muller, 2017).It is this logic that underpins the emergence of the user/polluter pays principle and thus the charging for the use of water resources (Santos, 2003).In the words of Santos (2003): The intensive use of water bodies, whether for capturing, diluting effluents, generating energy etc., limits the use of water by other users.In the medium and long term they can generate the commitment of water resources for future generations and the degradation of ecosystems dependent on these resources.These are savings or externalities generated by non-internalized resource users in their respective production costs, which are or will be borne by society as a whole.The internalization of these social costs -externalities -is the objective of charging for the use of water (Santos, 2003, p. 295).
The charge for the use of water resources aims to promote changes in the behavior of users, in the direction of greater rationalization of use.To attribute an economic value presupposes the internalization of costs, culminating in a more efficient use of the resource (Santos, 2003).In addition, the collection generated by the collection aims to generate financial resources to be invested in the process of implementing the management model, guaranteeing financial autonomy to function (Brazil, 1997).
In addition to these grounds, it is worth recalling that the NRH also established the river basin as a territorial unit for water management.Thus, river basin management is the main decentralizing element of the model (Tundisi, 2013).
For Tundisi (2013), the watershed approach presents several advantages, because: i) it is a physical unit with well-delimited borders, ii) it is a hydrologically integrated ecosystem, with interactive elements and subsystems, iii) it offers opportunity for the development of partnerships and the resolution of conflicts, iv) it allows the local population to participate in the decision-making process, v) it guarantees a basis of institutional integration, and vi) it promotes the integration of scientists, managers and decision makers with the general public for the management of water resources.
In order to carry out decentralized management, the river basin committee (CBH) is dispensed with.The CBH is a collegiate space that has deliberative, regulatory and advisory functions.Participative management will materialize in it, because it must be composed of members from the different sectors interested in water management (Mesquita, 2018).From the perspective of aggregating multiple interests, such actors will act from a set of common responsibilities and tasks (Mosque, 2018).
For the National Water Resources Policy, a CBH shall: Also, it will be within the scope of the action of the river basin committee that the other instruments of the policy will be implemented, namely: the Basin Plan, which aims to establish the objectives, the targets, the priorities for action and investment for the management of water resources; the framing of bodies of water in classes of use, which has as reference parameters of water quality and their respective values to achieve and maintain; and the Water Resources Information System, system for collecting, processing and storing data and intervening factors to subsidize the decision-making processes in the area of water resources management (Brazil, 1997).
In light of the above, it is noted that the implementation of these fundamentals and instruments underpin a model considered modern and promising to promote integrated and sustainable water management (Cerezini & Hanai, 2017).However, after more than two decades of its institution, the implementation of the same raises doubts in relation to its effective pertinence as a policy capable of encompassing all dimensions related to water management.
Regardless of the challenges and obstacles to its effective implementation, the issue here is that the model seems incapable of reaching rural contexts where users of small water sources predominate.The very notion of "insignificant" uses expresses such an understanding.Several authors pointed out that this policy fails to recognize and involve communities and knowledge, promoting the invisibility of groups that are settled in territories of important water sources (Ribeiro & Galizoni, 2013;Martins, 2015;Cerezini & Hanai, 2017;Marín & Serrano, 2020;Armando & Kühn, 2022).Therefore, it is from this perspective that the following results will 6 be analyzed, considering one of the most advanced contexts in the application of this model of water management.

Context of the Cantareira System
The "context of the Cantareira System" comprises the territory that covers the springs that contribute to the supply of its five reservoirs, namely: Jaguari, Jacareí, Cachoeira, Atibainha and Paiva Castro.More precisely, it is configured in the nine municipalities that make up 98.1% of this territory, namely: Camanducaia, Extrema, Itapeva and Sapucaí-Mirim in Minas Gerais; and Joanópolis, Mairiporã, Nazaré Paulista, Piracaia and Vargem in São Paulo (Figure 1) (Uezu et al., 2017).The landscape of this area is marked by the mountainous terrain and the continuous presence of pastures interspersed with eucalyptus fields and forest fragments.More accurate data are from 2011, and indicated about 46% of this territory occupied by pasture and urban areas, and 16% by reforestation, mainly eucalyptus.In addition, it added 35% native forest cover and 3% water mirror (Uezu et al., 2017).
The main anthropic uses occur within farming establishments.The 2017 Crop and Livestock Farming Census counted 3,465 farming establishments in all of the municipalities studied, covering an area of 118,660 hectares.Almost 91,000 hectares were owned by individual owners (IBGE, 2017).
On average, about 62% of the establishments are from family farmers (IBGE, 2017), largely linked to the country's cultural heritage.According to Diegues (2005), the hillbillies are largely besiegers, sharecroppers and partners who survive on small farms where they carry out farming and small-scale livestock activities, whose production is directed towards family subsistence and the market.
The presence of important roads should be highlighted as a factor influencing regional socio-economic conditions.The construction of the highways facilitated access to the region, and the proximity of large urban centers contributed to the urban-industrial growth of the municipalities.The easy access favored the development of leisure tourism, attracting people to enjoy the attractions of the region and establish residence.Urban expansion and tourism have promoted changes in the way rural space is developed, reflected in the proliferation of country homes, leisure sites and inns (Almeida Jr. et al., 2008).
Thus, the socioeconomic characteristics of the rural area in focus clearly refer to a heterogeneous profile of rural owners, ranging from farmers dependent on their property for the social reproduction of the family to those new residents, who have in the rural property a place of housing (Chiodi, Moruzzi Marques, & Muradian, 2018).For Carneiro (2012), rural areas like these are "contemporary rural areas", built precisely because of the interrelationship between old and new residents.
In this sense, social heterogeneity is the hallmark of new rural areas, expressed in the different forms of social representation and appropriation of the material and symbolic assets of rural localities.While rural areas are open to new forms of socio-cultural conflict and antagonism, they allow new forms of social interaction between rural and urban populations (Carneiro, 2012).

Research Strategies
The field research was carried out with rural landowners in four municipalities of Minas Gerais (Camanducaia, Itapeva, Extrema and Sapucaí-Mirim) and in five of São Paulo (Vargem, Joanópolis, Piracaia, Mairiporã and Nazaré Paulista).The main research strategy was the interview using a semi-structured script for the record of responses (Richardson, 2010).
In all, 151 owners were interviewed in 59 rural districts, these chosen randomly according to interest and availability to participate in the research.The number of interviews carried out represented approximately 5% of the universe of farming establishments in the area of study (IBGE, 2017).Interviews were usually followed by walks in the properties, a complementary technique that allowed the collection of impressions through direct observation (Richardson, 2010).Field research took place throughout 2021.
The research was predominantly qualitative, and the data were not collected for the purpose of statistical analysis.Thus, sample inferences are limited and are not extrapolated to the entire population (Becker, 1999).However, according to Becker (1999), the so-called quasistatistical method was assumed.This is based on the number and enumeration of sampling information found in the search.This data is sufficiently consistent for the inferences that one wants to make and allows the researcher to eliminate null hypotheses about the phenomenon studied.
To compare the perceptions identified in the interviews and the fundamentals and tools of the PNRH, the data collected in the interviews were organized in the form of tables in electronic spreadsheets.Tabulation made it possible to organize the responses obtained and to analyze them later.The transformation of absolute data into percentage scales and the use of frequency of responses were means to analyze the results.In addition, speakers' words and expressions were recorded and used as results of their perceptions and views.

Water Sources: Quality and Quantity
Different from the foundation of the NRP that establishes the river basin as a unit for planning and managing water resources, in the context researched are small and diffuse water sources the target elements for understanding local management processes.
In this sense, it was identified that the rural owners interviewed accessed both surface and underground water sources.About 73% of them accessed surface water sources (springs and small streams) and about 69% underground sources (wells).Commonly users accessed more than one source of water, especially one surface and one underground.The fountains served domestic and productive uses and the water reached piped to the rural households.
In this sense, two dimensions are central and deserve to be highlighted: qualitative and quantitative (Jung et al., 2023).In terms of quality, for 93% of the interviewees, the water they used was considered to be of good or excellent quality for human consumption.The general notion of quality was not linked to the results of laboratory analyzes, but to the knowledge of the source used (springs, wells), to sensorial perceptions (taste, color, smell), to the use of the source over time, to the relationship between the consumption of water and the absence of health problems derived from its use, and to the source being protected (spring surrounded by vegetation, well capped), therefore, its water perceived as clean.
A strong notion of quality was related to the non-treatment of water for consumption, a fact contrary to what happens in urban centers, where the water captured from larger watercourses needs to undergo chemical treatment to be consumed.According to one interviewee: "the water comes out of the girl, it's natural" and "free of sewage".Another said, "Water doesn't taste good.And it's born there.It is not contaminated at all".Phrases such as these were common in interviews and express an understanding of the good quality of the waters.
These criteria provide a basis for the concepts of quality of the sources accessed and are part of the ways of understanding and managing water resources.They are criteria applied directly by the users and are clearly mobilized to define the quality of the waters that they use.For Ribeiro & Galizoni (2013), the qualitative assessment of water is a key reference for rural populations.The quality criteria are used to define what uses are possible for each source accessed and, in situations of scarcity, serve to rank the usage priorities for the different sources.
In the framing of water bodies in use classes, it has to be said that the quality criteria are different.In this case, laboratory parameters are considered (Biochemical Oxygen Demand, Dissolved Oxygen, Turbidity, pH, etc.), as well as an extensive set of organic and inorganic parameters that need to be considered based on the flow of each watercourse (CONAMA, 2005).
In the context of the Cantareira System, the current framework presents water bodies as class I and class II (Profill-Rhama, 2020).For human consumption, Class I water bodies require simplified treatment (clarification by means of filtration and disinfection and pH correction when necessary) and Class II conventional treatment (clarification with use of coagulation and flocculation, followed by disinfection and pH correction) (CONAMA, 2005).
At this point, one starts from two interpretations: a large part of the owners consumes without treatment a water that would demand some kind of treatment (simplified or conventional), or the environment is being incapable of capturing the real conditions of quality of the water sources used.Here, the second interpretation is understood as more plausible, because for the framing of water bodies no analysis of small water sources is carried out, focusing on water bodies of larger volumes within the watershed.It can also be assumed that the owners have a very close relationship with the sources they use, including establishing quality criteria for them that also derive from their use over time.Consequently, a certain distance is perceived between the notions of quality of the owners and that established by the instrument of the National Policy on Water Resources.
Furthermore, the framing of water bodies in use classes uses scientific parameters, a characteristic that composes what Martins (2012) pointed out as the scientific logic that underpins the model of the PNRH.Therefore, it differs from local criteria that are based on direct perception of users and also on cultural aspects.In other words, they mobilize different logics to qualify water.For Diegues (2005), culture is determinant for perceptions about natural resources, so both in traditional societies and in urban-industrial waters can be contaminated and polluted,, in a way that is a culture that defines what is and what is not pollution.
In any event, the local criteria for classifying the quality of water sources is not an integral part of the NHRNP instrument.Thus, it is understood as important to seek the integration and harmonization of the classification criteria used by the legislation in force with those used by rural groups (Diegues, 2005;Martins, 2012;Ribeiro & Galizoni, 2013).Such a proposal could promote greater accuracy of the instrument, broaden its scope and stimulate the participation of owners in water management processes.
In the quantitative dimension, the research revealed a situation of relative abundance of water.Only 3% of the interviewees stated that they live with a lack of water (for domestic and productive use), of which for 50% there was a regulated use, and for 47% there was a leftover.Especially regulated use happens in periods without rain and where the source is communal.As an example, in the district of Areias, in the municipality of Itapeva-MG, about 30 houses were supplied by the artesian well built by the city hall.In this neighborhood, restrictions on use have been structured, since demand may exceed supply.The rules include a ban on filling swimming pools, washing cars and backyards, at the risk of exclusion from the EU's supply network.
In the scenario of water crisis that occurred between 2013 and 2015, only 34% of the interviewees said they had suffered some effect of the crisis, and few reported having suffered serious effects such as the scarcity of the resource that culminated in some emergency action (construction of wells, supply by kite truck).On the contrary, in the context of the operation of the Cantareira System this period was extremely serious, since it required the abstraction of water from the dead volume, an event never occurred in the history of operation of the system.Also, derived from this period decisions that culminated in the construction of a controversial work of water transfer from the Paraíba do Sul River to the Cantareira System (Puga, 2018).
The period of crisis was perceived in a very different way between the management that occurs directed towards the large bodies of water, from that which occurs through the action of the rural users of the small sources.In the context of the analysis of the case, it is pointed out that different scales allow for a different understanding of the phenomenon of the crisis.If on the macro scale several measures were taken, on the level of small uses this did not happen in a significant way.The gap between local management and the one promoted under the NHRNP is something that needs to be considered.
According to Riberio & Galizoni (2013): The exclusion of the local norm is also a trap, because, strategically, the headwaters of the springs and the springs are located in lands of rugged topography, high, less fertile, and not by chance these lands are in the majority under the domination of peasant families, or they are common lands managed by rural communities.Thus, the waters -so necessary for the businesses of companies and the object of the action of the committees -end up being regulated by farmers who do not dialog with companies, nor have representation or interests in committees that formulate norms aimed at the conservation of the great waters and do not connect with the subjects that are at the beginning of the subject (Ribeiro & Galizoni, 2013, p. 64).
The 10 In line with this position, the present study shows that local management of small sources is central to the dimension of regional water security.Considering such ways of managing water resources is fundamental to a fully efficient and sustainable management model.

Perceptions of Water Domain and Value
For PNRH, two fundamentals are central to water management, namely: water should be assumed as a public property and be endowed with economic value.It is these foundations that respectively base the granting of the right of use and the charging for the use of water resources as instruments of policy (Brazil, 1997).From this angle, we sought to understand the perception of the interviewees about these fundamentals and instruments, starting from two main questions: 1) Who owns the water?and 2) Should the user of water in rural areas pay for its use?
With regard to water ownership, 53% of the interviewees thought that they were the owners of the water, while 47% thought that they were not.For the former, there was a direct relationship between private land ownership and dominance over water.The meaning of the following phrases was common in the interviews: "If the land is mine, the water is mine"; "Whoever owns the land, owns the water"; "It's on my property, I consider it to be the owner"; "If it's inside the property, the right is to own the water".Therefore, a strong perception of water as a private domain resource, which differs from what the NHRP establishes, became clear.
Even though there was a strong sense of sharing in relation to the resource on the part of those who owned the land, since 50% of the families owned sources that were shared with other families, the private right of exclusion of users was captured.According to an interviewee in the municipality of Mairiporã-SP: "Everyone here uses mine water and when I came to build [a house], they didn't want to give water to me".Cases like this, where access is denied by the owner of the land, have been captured in some localities researched.
This understanding has been identified both by the owners who access surface and underground sources, but in relation to the latter was more accentuated.The fact that resources are invested in the drilling of wells and in the abstraction of water (electricity) reinforces the notion of private resources.We agree with Villar (2016) that reality shows that groundwater is used as if it were a private resource, which can be freely used by the owner of the land.In times of scarcity, users from rural areas seek access to groundwater based on individual decisions.
On the other hand, some of the owners understood that they did not own the waters they used.For these, water has no owner (48%), is a divine good (19%), is a gift of nature (14%), is a good of all (9%), among other perceptions.
The perception of no owner, of being a gift (divine or of nature) refers to concepts inherent to traditional populations (Diegues, 2005).Ribeiro & Galizoni (2003): [...] families and farming communities perceive water as a divine and gratuitous gift, which exists without the intervention of human labor: water springs, mines, marshes and flows by God's will.That is why water can never be denied; to deny it or to privatize it is to take possession of an individual donation common to all people and living, it is to appropriate a collective resource that individuals, families and communities have the right to use (Ribeiro & Galizoni, 2003, p. 134).
This view is closer to the basis given by the NHRP, that water is a public good.However, a public domain asset means that the state has responsibility over it for the good of the collectivity, so the agents of the management system need to have information from all users.To this end, the right of use was granted for significant consumption and the registration of insignificant uses as an instrument for controlling and managing water resources.In view of 11 this need, it was identified in the survey that only 6% of the interviewees had a concession or even such registration.Non-compliance with the norm, in part, can even be assumed as a result of a lack of information regarding the need for registration, but it is understood that this reality is also linked to the logic of understanding water as a common good, a gift of nature (Chiodi & Sousa, 2022).When water is perceived as a gift, not produced by anyone and without owner, consolidating management systems supported by solidarity with the natural good (Galizoni, 2005;Diegues, 2005), it has to be found that decisions to balance access to the resource and its availability are at the local level.Thus, they also distance themselves from the PNRH model due to the power of control over the resource being of families and communities, and not of agents external to the locality (public bodies, large users, civil society organizations, etc.).
When the economic value of water was considered through the question about payment for its use, the answers tended to be almost unanimous.For about 90% of the interviewees, there should be no payment from rural users for the use of water.Among a broad group of explanatory responses, Table 1 presents the main ones.According to Table 1, it is noted that the most recurrent response was based on the comparison with the urban context, where the supply is carried out by companies that charge for the service.As in rural areas the task of guaranteeing the home supply lies with the individual himself and does not depend on outsourced water infrastructure, there is no point in paying for the water.The users themselves capture, operate and manage the water.
In a general analysis, the common perception of not paying for water was also based on different conceptions.One group (35% of the interviewees) justified the responses by the understanding of water as a common good and a gift; another (28%) justified it by the understanding of water as a private resource.In the latter approach, it is emphasized that the sense of sharing water explains the notion of gratuitousness and overrides the economic value that could derive from private law on the land where the water source is located.For a small group of respondents (5%) the payment should occur to encourage more rational use of the resource.In other words, the objetive of charging for the use of water resources is echoed by a small portion of the owners interviewed.
Charging for the use of water is linked to a logic that establishes the economic value of the resource in order to shape the behavior of the users.Despite the belief in the effectiveness of this instrument to promote the rational use of water, Martins (2012) understands the diffusion of this logic as a process of social re-significance of the value of water.For the author, this re- signification presupposes understanding water not as a common good that can incorporate distinct meanings within populations and cultures, but as a scarce commodity and endowed with economic value.
In any case, even knowing that the charge for the use of water resources is not applied at the level of insignificant uses, it is pointed out that this instrument does not get close to the perceptions of the interviewees, who understand water as something that should be free.Once again, the perceptions and aspects that shape the relations between the interviewees and the water do not align themselves with what is established by the National Water Resources Policy.

Local Management: Decisions and Conflicts
The NRP has established an institutional structure focused on decentralization and social participation to promote water management.For the management process to happen, information must be available to support the decisions of the agents who participate in the process.In this sense, the policy established the need for the elaboration of the River Basin Plan and the creation of the Water Resources Information System (Brazil, 1997).
However, when rural landowners are considered to be decision-makers in the management of the sources they use, the information they provide is of no use to them.About 84% of the interviewees did not know the PNRH and 75% did not know about the existence of the Committees of the Hydrographic Basins of the Piracicaba, Capivari and Jundiaí Rivers, and of those who did, the majority did not know how to explain what this committee was and what its purposes were.
According to Ribeiro & Galizoni (2003), PNRH is relevant to the regulation and management of large consumers, but ignores community management conducted by rural populations.This reflects the incompatibility between the legal and operational apparatus of the policy and the ways in which rural groups decide on the access, use and conservation of water sources.The field of local decision-making is not fed by the prior information generated in law enforcement processes.
However, this does not mean that local decision-making processes do not have baseline references, but that these are distinct from the one established by the NHRP.The reference point for these processes is the water source and not the catchment area.It is on the basis of this unit that decision spaces about access and use of water arise, and that conflicts that emerge between users will be resolved.
Not even the microbasin cutout is adjusted to understand local management processes.It is the small springs such as springs, small streams and wells that structure ways of access and local management.Accordingly, the dense hydrographic network of the territory made possible for a large portion of the interviewees the almost exclusive use of water sources.For about 83% of them was available on their property at least one water fountain and for half of the owners the fountain was "private", used only by the family resident on the property.
In these cases, the decision-making process on access, use and conservation of the sources was based on the particular logics of the user families.Especially for the sources that guarantee the domestic supply, great care was noted in protecting the sources, especially the springs.Galizoni et al. (2013) reports the conception of farmers about the springs in the Jequitinhonha Valley, where these are the best and most appreciated waters to drink.Therefore, it is the waters that most interest rural families for their supply, and so guaranteeing their quantity and quality is a priority.
For the other half of the interviewees, some source located within the property was shared with families living on other properties.On average, each source supplied five other families.Different arrangements were set up around these sources of shared use.The agreements for water sharing were almost always based on the availability of water from the source.According to Hoogesteger (2013), user rules, rights and obligations shape and are shaped by collective action and social organization around the joint creation and maintenance of water flows.Such relationships generate ties of shared hydrosocial/territorial identity, linking users to their water sources, infrastructure, territory and user/community organizations.
The context of the Cantareira System, in the context of the management conducted by the JCP Committees, is the territory of a large river basin, but for the interviewees, this territory does not appear as something that can be mobilized to think their actions in the face of water sources.Cardoso (2003) points out that there is a big difference in recognizing the area as a watershed, and the population identifying with it.For the author, actions can be carried out that seek to develop the capacity of the population to recognize what a river basin is, however, when the proposal is that this unit be the object of collective management, it is necessary that there is a sense that motivates people and institutions to participate in this process of management.
For Abers (2007), the construction of collective identities can be a way for people to mobilize the watershed as a territory for water management.According to the author, collective identity does not need to exist beforehand, but its emergence usually requires the strategic work of leaders and organizations that promote small-scale collaborative efforts, connect previously disconnected groups, and disseminate new frameworks about the nature of a group and the problems it can solve.However, in the context of the analysis, it is appropriate to consider that the grounds that guide users' decisions are not necessarily linked to a broad territory, but rather to the sources they use.
Furthermore, the agreements identified were based around informal negotiations and norms built between those who own the property where the source is located and the external users.They are verbal agreements, and the older they are, the stronger they are.Broken agreements occur when users change -when the property is sold to new residents.However, in many cases, when the new inhabitant acquires a property/lot without a water source, there is a prior negotiation with the land owner who is the source that will be made available to the future user.
For community sources, especially wells drilled by the prefecture for collective use, the rules of common use are more broadly agreed.In some cases the management of these sources is conducted in formal spaces, as in the neighborhood association.And in these cases there is regulation and social control.As one interviewee said: "We have an agreement between us to be regulating".The example of the Camanducainha neighborhood, where the water accessed by the community is suspended at night, reflects the regulation by the users themselves.
In any case, despite understanding that community management may not be fair and egalitarian, since it involves power relations, property and political relations (Cáceres & Maia-Rodrigues, 2019), in the case analyzed, a high degree of efficiency of the agreements was noticed, since only 15% of the owners said they have already experienced some kind of conflict, whether by access, use or conservation of water.
Among the conflicts identified, none had the JCP Committees as a forum for their resolution, and few went beyond the local resolution spaces.The conflicts that have surpassed the local sphere most often were those of irregular access of water for productive purposes and those of contamination of sources of collective use, both emerging from complaints made by the population to enforcement bodies.
If the transposition of the waters of the PCJ Basins to supply the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo via the Cantareira System is often a conflict-generating event within the PCJ Committees (Puga, 2018), the conflicts between the rural users interviewed did not even reach the knowledge of the actors who participated in these committees.While this avoids that the JCP Committees' actions focus on the resolution of small conflicts that can be solved locally, it also demonstrates the inadequacy of this space in the exercise of its competence to resolve these types of conflicts (Brazil, 1997).14 According to Ribeiro & Galizoni (2013), the river basin committees have not yet become a space for debate and the production of agreements, and it is possible to have doubts whether they will be constituted, due to such radical differences of perspectives, since while the committees establish criteria, it is most often the rural populations that exercise the practice of consumption and direct management of the waters.
Despite the existence of practically private water source management by the interviewees, community management is important in the context studied.The recognition, enhancement and strengthening of community management systems can be strategies for water management that effectively contributes to sustainable rural development (Armando & Kühn, 2022).According to Santos & Santana (2020), community water management does not require official rules and regulations, but includes a set of local cooperative actions with autonomous organization to administer water supply systems in collective environments of communities and homes.
Taking this perspective into account, Community management has a dual role: 1) it represents a concrete solution to the failure to respect the principle of universality of basic sanitation services, and 2) it is an indigenous tradition and practice of rural populations (Marín & Serrano, 2020).Therefore, as a productive experience relegated by state public policy and the legal regime of public services, it deserves protection and promotion as one of the purest ways of exercising the fundamental right to water (Marín & Serrano, 2020).

CONCLUSION
The National Water Resources Policy established a water management model based on foundations and instruments considered modern.However, in the context of the Cantareira System, the application of the model does not seem capable of integrating rural users of small and diffuse water sources, besides its fundamentals and instruments distancing themselves from the perceptions and forms of local water management.
The quality criteria set by the landowners are different from those applied in the policy.It was understood that, in spite of being non-scientific, the local criteria are legitimate for attesting to the quality of the water accessed by the interviewees.In quantitative terms, the availability of water for rural users is satisfactory, and not even in the period of the region's greatest crisis was there a scarcity of resources.This has differed greatly from the management under the Cantareira System.It was realized that different scales are mobilized for management and that this reflects different ways of perceiving the crisis.
With regard to the field of water resources, while the NRP has established the public domain, rural landowners perceive water as a private resource or as a common good.These differences in conceptions can help explain the non-compliance with the law regarding the registration of insignificant use by most owners.
It should be stressed that economic value does not figure as a basis for local water management.On the contrary, it is the notion of gratuitousness that has appeared as the central axis that underpins such management.Even when water is perceived as a private resource, the notion of a free asset overlaps, which demonstrates the prevalence of sharing the good as a structuring element of local management.
Besides the tools that provide information for decision making not being known to the owners, therefore, do not appear as adjusted to subsidize local decisions, the river basin also does not adjust itself as a unit for thinking out local management.Adding to the fact that the JCP Committees are not local conflict resolution space, it is understood that the established model is not suitable for recognizing and incorporating local management processes.
In order for the NHRP model to be fully effective in water management, it will be necessary to have foundations and tools tailored to local management processes carried out by landowners who use small water sources autonomously.Recognizing, valuing and promoting what these actors do becomes a path to full policy effectiveness.
instituted the National Water Resources Policy (PNRH in the Portuguese acronym) and consolidated the integrated model for managing water The National Water Resources Policy and Water Management: Considerations about the Rural Context of the Cantareira System ___________________________________________________________________________ Rev. Gest.Soc.Ambient.| Miami | v.17.n.10 | p.1-17 | e04017 | 2023.

Table 1 .
Number and percentage of responses on why landowners should not pay for water use in rural areas in 2021.