Hydroelectric projects continue to be built in the Amazon, Congo, and Mekong Basins to harvest hydroelectric potential and increase energy security, economic growth, and industrialization. In Brazil, heavy investments in hydroelectric developments are occurring throughout the Amazon Basin. Located in the State of Para, the Belo Monte Dam is the largest, most recent hydroelectric project in the region and third largest in the world. The city of Altamira, 52 kilometers upstream from the dam, served as the main location for construction staging efforts. Altamira experienced rapid population increase that led to greater water and wastewater disposal demand, stressing local sanitation services. The waste disposal practices and sanitation services in Altamira are similarly precarious throughout the Amazon Basin and the developing world. Hydroelectric dams promise to leave as a legacy improved water quality and basic sanitation. Thus, using Belo Monte and Altamira as a model system, the purpose of this research is to examine the social factors and environmental processes that challenge basic sanitation in communities located upstream of major hydroelectric development projects and identify ways in which they impact the welfare of the population. Using social surveys, water sampling, groundwater monitoring, and statistical and spatial analyses, we gathered geographical, social, hydrological, and biological data, to identify high-risk locations with potential fecal contaminant presence in drinking water wells stemming from nearby septic tanks. Further, we examine socioeconomic variables that may explain differential contaminant exposure and ingestion risks. Considering sanitation both an important societal and environmental issue that affects water quality, and public health and safety, this dissertation provides a framework that can be used to identify social and environmental vulnerabilities to water well contamination. Identifying the areas and seasons where there are increases in fecal contaminants can aid in the potential reduction of negative impacts to local residents and their groundwater resources that can emerge from large hydropower development projects. The multidisciplinary methods, tools, and analyses presented in our work bring together approaches from the natural and social sciences, serving as a model of convergent research that advances future work across disciplines. The results can become an important reference in guiding the implementation of public health and sanitation efforts in order to minimize social and environmental impacts in communities that will be affected by major development projects not only in Brazil, but across the world.
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