Doce River Large-Scale Environmental Catastrophe: Decision and Policy-Making Outcomes

A tailings dam failed on 5 November 2015, flooding the Doce River, Brazil, with 34 Mm3 of tailings and killing 19 people, together with massive riverine life annihilation, water-use impairments, and fisheries interruption. A total of 663.2 km of river channel were directly affected, leaving over 600 people homeless and impacting protected coastal areas with threatened marine species. Following the disaster, a series of political and management decisions were taken, impairing ecosystem recovery—even four years post-disaster. In this chapter, we discuss governmental actions after the Fundao tailings dam rupture and its environmental impact on the Doce River watershed. The creation of a new governance structure that would theoretically deal with river basin reclamation is evaluated according to the decision-making powers of each stakeholder. Results show that there is a bias towards fund management, diminishing effective institutional diversity in the decision-making process. A vulnerability analysis shows that administrative improbity substantially increases basin vulnerability. Despite the efforts in creating new environmental governance systems to address post-disaster ruptures, Brazil has a high threshold to surpass: the implementation of regulations. Lack of equanimity in the governance structure, combined with frail law enforcement, might be the primary overall impairment in developing economies.