In an interview with Jovem Pan, Secretary of Environment, Infrastructure and Logistics, Natália Resende, says that maintenance was a matter of ‘prudence’
After a meeting, the Public Services Regulatory Agency of the State of São Paulo decided to maintain Night Demand Management at 10 hours. Water pressure in homes and establishments in the São Paulo Metropolitan Region will continue to be reduced between 7pm and 5am.
The decision of the Agency’s Board of Directors took into account the percentage of recovery of the reservoirs and the approaching dry period. The objective is to avoid water shortages during the drier seasons.
Even with the recent rains and the increase in reservoir levels, the scenario is one of caution. Although the Integrated Metropolitan system operates at around 50% of capacity, Cantareira, which supplies half of the São Paulo Metropolitan Region, is at 38.2%. To give you an idea, on January 10, 2026, the reservoir volume was just 19.7%. Growth, however, is not enough and state government projections indicate that Cantareira would have to be at approximately 50% to have a dry period with water security.
In an interview with Jovem Pan, the Secretary of Environment, Infrastructure and Logistics, Natália Resende, classified the maintenance of the measure as prudence: “In order for us to preserve the springs, especially Cantareira, we decided, for the sake of prudence, to maintain the GDN at least until the end of the wet period. But of course we are monitoring it every day. We are watching the entire hydrological cycle and the next drought.”
She also pointed out that February had a volume of rain above the historical average. However, he highlighted that in previous months rainfall was irregular.
State management established a contingency curve, separated by bands, that goes up to level 7, the latter being a critical level at which rationing would already occur. Currently the water scenario is in band 3. Within this context, the government established a minimum indicator of 30% in September this year for the Metropolitan Integrated System.
The reduction in water pressure, however, generated many complaints from the population. Natalia Resende states that a series of measures were adopted to mitigate the impacts. She states that there has even been a drop in the number of complaints.
The government says it is distributing and installing water tanks for populations that are most affected.
The reduction in nighttime pressure began in August last year and, according to the state government, has already saved more than 105 billion liters of water, a volume that would be enough to supply the capital of São Paulo, Guarulhos, São Bernardo and Mauá for approximately 30 days.
