abstract. - Les aménagements hydroélectriques a l’échelle des grands cours d’eaux tropicaux brésiliens: les politiques et la distribution spatiale. Dams have been constructed across the world for thousands of years. The first dams were built more than 4,000 years ago and were used for the supply of water for human supply and for irrigation. Prior to the 1940’s there were around 5,000 large dams in the world. The biggest was located in the more developed industrialized countries. After the 2nd World War the construction of dams continued meeting an increasing demand in more countries across the world. The first dams for human supply in Brazil were built from around 1877 to 1880. A further use of dams came in developing technology to allow the production of electrical energy. This was achieved by releasing the potential energy of the stored water and converting it to electrical energy. This promoted the construction of dams for this use all over the world. This paper aims to present a discussion about the historical evolution of the construction of hydro electric dams and their spatial distribution over the Brazilian territory. It will present this in context with the large fluvial systems across the world and the fragmentation of the hydrographic networks. The paper details the production of the policies that control the development of the Brazilian electrical energy industry and the analysis of the spatial distribution of the dams for each of the large Brazilian watersheds which was carried out. The application of developed policies promoted the expansion of the electrical energy industry.
Key-words: Dams, Brazil, power plants, potential energy