Valoração econômica da água na suplementação hídrica da agricultura brasileira em um modelo multissetorial de crescimento

Despite having one of the largest freshwater reserves in the world, Brazil has a high concentration of this resource in the Northern region, thus, there is a relative shortage for meeting different demands, including irrigation, human consumption, and industrial use. In this sense, proposals and public policies for water use have emerged, which inevitably involve attributing an economic value to water use. The empirical findings of this study give estimations for the economic value of the water used for Brazilian crop supplementation, using a multisector growth model, calibrated for 2005 through a social accounting matrix with discrimination of water remuneration, and a growth accounting exercise. The water values obtained are expressed by two different concepts, defined in an intertemporal perspective: shadow rental value and shadow price. The highest shadow rental values and shadow prices values are in the group of “other crops” – crops that do not correspond to the rice or sugar cane production – in the Brazilian South-Central. On the other hand, the lowest values were obtained for sugar cane in the South-Central, which is the largest water user in the country.