Overview of the drought situation and the national security policy for disaster prevention: what were the faults?

Brazil is among the ten largest countries with mineral reserves in the world, much of it concentrated in the State of Minas Gerais. In recent decades, there has been growing concern about legislation aimed at dam safety and the need for greater State participation, since structural problems in dams can expose the population and the environment to high levels of risk. The objective of this work is to evaluate the panorama of the actual conditions of the dams at the national level, with emphasis on the State of Minas Gerais, in relation to the actions to be implemented in light of the current federal legislation and the analysis of the last Dams Safety Report, in the year 2017. Today, there are 31 bodies that effectively enforce dam safety. In their registers, there are 24,092 dams for the most diverse uses, especially irrigation, animal watering, and aquaculture. The State of Minas Gerais leads the ranking with 369 dams and only 200 inserted in the National Policy of Security of Dams (PNSB). The PNSB classifies the dams into high, medium and low categories for Risk and Potential Damage according to site and structure conditions. Although actions have been developed to implement stricter dam enforcement policies in recent years, recent events reinforce that there is still a need to assess and monitor the licensing of such constructions, especially with regard to new structures to prevent loss of more lives and national ecosystems.