Groundwater governance in the states of São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul: An analysis from the instruments of the National Water Resources Policy Noemia Bohn PPGEA – Postgraduate Program in Environmental Engineering - FURB Blumenau, Santa Catarina, Brasil noemiafurb@gmail.com Willian Jucelio Goetten. Department of Sanitary Engineering - State University of Santa Catarina -UDESC Ibirama, Santa Catarina, Brasil willian.goetten@udesc.br Abstract: In the present scenario of implementation of the National Water Resources Policy (PNRH), there is consensus on the strategic importance of groundwater to achieve the basic objective of the policy, which is to ensure the current and future generations the necessary water availability, on quality standards appropriate to their uses. A specificity of groundwater in the Brazilian legal system is the exclusivity of your domain assigned to states by CF / 88. In this context, this article presents the partial results of research that has been carried out under the Project Network Guarani / Serra Geral, aims, carry out a comparative analysis of the governance of groundwater from the instruments of PNRH by check existence of such law, regulation and implementation of the same in the states of Sao Paulo, Parana, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. To achieve the objective of the research an adapted methodological model of Foster et al [1] and proposed theoretical model by Turton et al [2] were used. The analysis of the results concluded that the states of São Paulo and Paraná obtained high performance in the implementation of the instruments of PNRH, while the states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul had average performance. Keywords: water resources policy; groundwater; governance I. INTRODUCTION In the current scenario of implementation of the National Water Resources Policy (PNRH) established by Law 9.433 / 97, there is consensus on the strategic importance of groundwater to achieve the basic objective of the policy, which is to ensure the current and future generations the necessary water availability, quality standards appropriate to their uses. But earlier, this finding was not so obvious, since the very Law 9.433 / 97 in its text has highlighted just surface water [3] and [4]. The first step to overcoming this regulatory gap under the PNRH, occurred with approval by the National Water Resources Council (CNRH) of Resolution No. 15 of 12/01/2001 establishing guidelines for integrated water management. Later other resolutions from CNRH regulated the protection and conservation of groundwater, as well as their consideration in applying the tools of PNRH such as resolutions CNRH No 22/01, No 91/08, No 92/08 and No 107 / 10. A specificity of groundwater in the Brazilian legal system, which is under the Federal Constitution of 1988, Art. 26, I, Its dominion is unique to the States, so this is the federal entity that must put into practice the integrated management of surface and groundwater. Just as it is the Union's responsibility editing general rules (principles standards), of national implementation over water , for the states regulations (rules-rules) for the application of general rules at the state level [5]. Thus, the applicability of PNRH occurs at the state level, through the formalization of a public policy management of water resources, including groundwater, which specifies, details and fits the general rule to state reality. The Estate, such as the national law, establishes its water policy by means of a law, that states the principles, objectives and guidelines that will guide the policy, the tools to put it into practice, as well as the organs responsible for its implementation, which make up the state system of water management. It is this set of rules, tools, processes and institutions that form the basic structure of governance that will enable the implementation of public policy on water resources in the state. In this context, this article presents the partial results of research that has been carried out under the Project Network Guarani / Serra Geral, aims to carry out a comparative analysis of the governance of groundwater, from the existence of such law, regulation and implementation of the instruments of PNRH in the states of Sao Paulo, Parana, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. 2015 9th International Conference on Complex, Intelligent, and Software Intensive Systems 978-1-4799-8870-9/15 $31.00 © 2015 IEEE DOI 10.1109/CISIS.2015.62 430 2015 Ninth International Conference on Complex, Intelligent, and Software Intensive Systems 978-1-4799-8870-9/15 $31.00 © 2015 IEEE DOI 10.1109/CISIS.2015.62 430