Current trends of water use in Brazil are dangerous and unsustainable. This fresh-water-endowed country's nearly 30-year old legal framework is conducive to sound governance, in principle. In practice, fair and sustainable freshwater governance faces steep obstacles and requires new institutions. Too much responsibility is left to voluntary processes and to a disempowered and largely demobilized public as the motor for change, while national decision makers allow dangerous wastefulness and prioritize large-scale use of water as a commercial commodity over the legally sanctioned purpose of sustaining human and animal well-being. Purely voluntary processes are insufficient to counter this. Top-down governmental authority and enforcement mechanisms are needed to ensure wise use and compliance by all, as is greater general access to system-critical knowledge. Needed collective pressure for fair and sound water governance is obstructed by power-inflected information and education structures that leave Brazilians uninformed about the true costs of Brazil's commodities-centered economic model and about the reality of water insecurity and its avoidability. New institutions are vitally needed to empower the citizenry and generally improve decision-making in the public interest.
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