La gestion collective de l'eau dans les périmètres irrigués du Nordeste brésilien, vallée de São Francisco

The thesis studies the changes occured in the management of the irrigated perimeters of Brazilian Nordeste following the central disengagement of the state. It analyzes the problems arising from the passage of a mode of management centralized and bureaucratic to a form of decentralized management, implemented by the users themselves. From the observation of two irrigated perimeters, the study is interested in the processes of creation of new bodies of management (the districts of irrigation), in the stakes and the conflicts that arouse the elaboration of new rules of the game and new reports of power among the users, in the influence of the technical characteristics of the networks of irrigation and the impact of the coexistence of small developers and agricultural companies in the same irrigated perimeter. A privileged place is given to the questions put by the elaboration of a system of fixing of a price scale for the water and by the behavior of the users as regards the payment of the fees. The resolution of these two problems constitutes a fundamental condition of the stabilization of the new organizations of management.