AVALIAÇÃO DA EXPANSÃO DA INFRAESTRUTURA EM ESGOTAMENTO SANITÁRIO NA MANCHA CONURBADA DA REGIÃO METROPOLITANA DE BELO HORIZONTE: 2000 A 2010 Sanitary Sewer Expansion in the in Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Region: An Assessment from 2000 to 2010

The Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Region (RMBH), Brazil, encompasses 34 municipalities. Currently, 19 out of the 34 municipalities are contiguously connected, forming an enormous urban area of 1,716 km2 with approximately 4.3 million inhabitants, representing 80 percent of the total regional population. The main objective of this paper is to identify areas within the conurbation RMBH that should have priority with regards to receiving investments for sewer infrastructure expansion. The methodology combines remote sensing, raster analysis, and Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA). The results pointed out that sewer infrastructure investments were small in areas that have experienced high urbanization during 2000-2010. The large majority of investments took places in areas within RMBH that were already occupied but were lacking sewer infrastructure, which may be related to the infrastructure defi cit that RMBH is experiencing. The decision-making process of resource allocation for sewer infrastructure may benefi t from the spatial analysis developed in this article.