Environmental Education for water resources management

Abstract

In the context of educational practices in water resources, the search for sustainable development stands out as a strategy to enable economic activities without exhausting natural resources. Environmental Education (EA) plays an important role in this scenario, helping to promote sustainable management of water resources. The management of water resources becomes necessary in the face of challenges related to water, requiring a systemic approach that incorporates man as an integral part of the environment. With this, EA emerges as a guiding axis to adjust human activities, avoiding the degradation of ecosystems. This approach highlights the importance of preserving water resources and their sustainable use as a fundamental objective of EA, crossing disciplinary boundaries to comprehensively address anthropogenic impacts. Thus, environmental education emerges as an essential component to sensitize people about the importance of sustainable management of water resources, guiding practices that seek a harmonious relationship between present needs and the preservation of the environment. In this context, the present work, carried out through a bibliographical research, presented the Brazilian guidelines related to Environmental Education and the trend towards this in relation to current scenarios, as well as the management structure of water resources in Brazil. The importance of water quality as a consequence of human actions and an indicator of the effectiveness of the implementation of Environmental Education was also addressed, moving on to a discussion of EA as a tool in the search for sustainability and ending with the presentation of some EA practices related to water resources.