Rio Meia Ponte: a six-step flow scale, and a rationing plan waiting behind it

Goiânia draws most of its drinking water from the Rio Meia Ponte, and the Goiás environment secretariat Semad publishes the river's condition on a six-step scale keyed to measured flow: Atenção at or below 12,000 litres per second, Alerta at 9,000, then four critical steps at 5,500, 4,000, 3,000 and 2,000 l/s. The published figure is a seven-day moving average of daily readings taken at 07:00 and 17:00, updated every day at 18:00, drawn from ten monitoring stations in the basin; Semad counts more than 430 measurement campaigns between 2020 and 2025. Behind the scale sits a consequence document: in September 2024 the state regulator AGR approved Saneago's rationing plan for the Sistema Integrado de Abastecimento de Água da Região Metropolitana de Goiânia, one of sixteen municipal plans it signed off, setting out rotation groups by neighbourhood and a list of essential users to be spared. In 2026, after more than thirty days without rain, the river reached the second step, Alerta.