Pipiripau Produtor de Água — Payment for Protection of Water Resources (PPRH), Federal District, Brazil

The Ribeirão Pipiripau, a stream that rises in Goiás state and flows mostly through Brazil's Federal District, supplies irrigation and drinking water to roughly 200,000 people in the Sobradinho and Planaltina regions of Brasília. Decades of unregulated agriculture in the basin degraded springs and silted waterways, fuelling conflict between irrigators, the water utility Caesb, and downstream users.

Launched in December 2011 by the Federal District water regulator ADASA in partnership with utility Caesb, the national water agency ANA, The Nature Conservancy, WWF, EMBRAPA, the University of Brasília and, in total, 13 partner institutions, the "Produtor de Água" project pays farmers, through a formal Payment for Protection of Water Resources (PPRH) mechanism, under five-year contracts, to restore degraded riparian areas, rebuild rural access roads to reduce erosion, and build small retention ponds (barraginhas) that increase infiltration.

By mid-2024 the project had signed 318 contracts since inception (115 active at any one time, covering roughly 287 properties historically) and disbursed more than R$3.4 million to participating landowners, about 70% of it between 2019 and 2024. A parallel infrastructure measure — relining the Santos Dumont irrigation canal — cut water losses to infiltration and evaporation by an estimated 50%. These are programme-reported figures; no independently peer-reviewed evaluation of biodiversity or streamflow outcomes was found.

Read the full analysis: https://jornaldebrasilia.com.br/brasilia/projeto-produtor-de-agua-do-pipiripau-amplia-contratos-e-chega-a-115-ativos/