EFFECTIVENESS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY STANDARDS ESTABLISHMENT

Abstract

The National Environment Policy, Law 6938/81, has the function of providing a coherent conceptual and operational guide for the country’s environmental laws. In order for achieving this purpose, objectives, instruments and a central organizational system for the environmental management were established. Among the instruments it was provided the establishment of environmental quality standards. After more than thirty years of this prediction, there are not concrete studies to evaluate the results obtained so far. Given the need for such studies, this article examined the effectiveness of the establishment of environmental quality standards, that is, if it has produced the expected goals. The research was exploratory, outlined by bibliographic and documentary methods. The results showed that the legal provision was fulfi lled, with current quality standards for water, air, noise sound and soil, established by predefined classes of use of the territory. However, these patterns have not been allocated as quality targets, able to ensure the required environmental conditions in the country. The prevailing action is the use of command and control measures to reduce pollution, especially the application of emission limits for specific sources, without the expected observation of the limits specifi ed by the standards of environmental quality. In addition, the lack of planning of the use of the territory and the shortcomings in monitoring environmental quality in Brazil harm the appropriation of established standards. Thus, it is concluded that the environmental quality standards have not been effective because the proposed objectives were not achieved.