Unplanned urban growth has caused severe impacts on urban rivers, such as water
quality degradation, silting and removal of riparian vegetation. Such impacts can, in
the long term, interfere with the perception of the population and public authorities in
relation to the water resource, which is treated as “sewage”. The Igarapé do Juá
watershed, located in the city of Santarém, underwent a rapid process of
urbanization in the first decades of the 2000s, which resulted in the conversion of a
natural watercourse into “sewer” according to the perception of local public and
private agents and the population that lives in its surroundings. This work presents
results which show that most of the interviewees did not know the Juá stream; 88%
of the participants did not know what riparian forest is; and 33% of those questioned
referred to the stream as a sewer. Based on these results, an Environmental
Education action was formulated, adequate to the reality of the area and that can
serve as an instrument for changing perceptions and improving environmental
conditions.
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