Esgoto na rede: A rede cobre a cidade; o campo fica na fossa

Cerejo, Lucas Nakamura

doi:10.5281/zenodo.23540101

No. 051 Census · income Sanitation and biomethane 1/4

Sewage on the mains

The mains cover the city; the countryside stays on the tank

Record, downloads and citation

Map of São Paulo state with its 103,000 census tracts coloured by the share of households whose sewage went to the mains, the storm drain or a tank linked to the mains in 2022, in six classes from cream (up to 10%) to dark blue (over 99%). The cream of rural tracts covers most of the territory; dark blue forms patches in the towns, the largest in Greater São Paulo. Tracts whose class is withheld are hatched. A callout points to Ibiúna, with 71% of households off the mains. In the panel, each class has a bar with its share of the state’s households, and the six towns with the most households off the mains appear as bars, led by São Paulo with 205,630. — Fig. 051 São Paulo State (SP) EPSG:4674 Source: IBGE

In 2022, 91.3% of households in São Paulo state had their sewage connected to the mains, to the storm drain or to a septic tank linked to the mains: 14.8 million out of 16.2 million. 1.41 million were missing. Painted tract by tract, the map shows the mains as an urban thing: three households in four live in tracts where over 99% are connected, but those tracts are small, and the cream of the rural tracts, where almost no one is on the mains, covers most of the state. The city of São Paulo has 205,630 households off the mains, the largest absolute number; among towns with more than 20,000 households, Ibiúna has the largest share off the mains (71%). First plate of the collection “Sanitation and biomethane”.

Technical record · downloads · citation

At a glance

Layers

setores polygon 103,319 census tracts: households by sewage and rubbish destination, mains-connection class, leading destination and uncollected-rubbish class
regioes_intermediarias polygon 11 intermediate geographic regions
limite_estadual polygon State boundary

Metadata

Sources: IBGE — 2022 Population Census: household characteristics by census tract (2022)
IBGE — SIDRA, table 6805: households by type of sewage disposal (2022)
IBGE — 2022 Census Tract Mesh (2022)
Extent: São Paulo State (SP)
CRS / Projection: SIRGAS 2000 (EPSG:4674)
EPSG:4674
Software: Node.js · d3-geo · QGIS
Method: Share of each census tract’s occupied permanent private households whose sewage goes to the mains, the storm drain or a tank linked to the mains, in six classes; tracts with withheld values get a class only when it does not depend on the omitted value.
Version: v1.0.0
Licence: CC BY 4.0
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23540101

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Figure to reuse

The map without a frame, with legend, scale, reference system and credit written on it: ready for papers, lectures and slides. In two versions: with the basemap (neighbours and sea) or only the mapped area, on white.

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How to cite

Cerejo, L. N. (2026). Esgoto na rede: a rede cobre a cidade; o campo fica na fossa [Sewage on the mains: The mains cover the city; the countryside stays on the tank] (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23540101

@dataset{cerejo2026_esgoto_na_rede_sp,
  author    = {Cerejo, Lucas Nakamura},
  title     = {Esgoto na rede: A rede cobre a cidade; o campo fica na fossa},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  version   = {1.0.0},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.23540101},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23540101},
  language  = {portuguese},
  note      = {English title: Sewage on the mains: The mains cover the city; the countryside stays on the tank. Licence CC BY 4.0}
}

How to read this plate area, projection, scale, legend and source · 2 terms

1 Area: São Paulo State (SP) The area the plate covers. Outside it, neighbours and sea are drawn in grey, just for orientation.
2 Coordinates and projection: SIRGAS 2000 (EPSG:4674) The layers are in SIRGAS 2000; the drawing’s projection is written in the colophon at the foot of the panel.
3 Scale: Graphic scale bar in the panel The scale bar is true on the central meridian; away from it, measured distances vary a little.
4 Legend and layers: 3 layers in the GeoPackage · polygon Read the legend before the map: it tells you whether a colour is a rate or a class, and whether a circle is a total.
5 Sources: IBGE (2022) Every figure comes from a public source, with its year. The data sheet gives each one’s address.

Terms on this plate

Census tract: The smallest collection area of the IBGE Census, a few hundred households each. It is the finest grain at which income, sanitation and housing can be seen without identifying anyone.
Biomethane: Biogas upgraded, with most of the CO₂ removed, to ANP’s specification, at which point it replaces natural gas in the pipeline, in industry and in the lorry’s tank.

Anatomy of a plate Full glossary

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Layers, table and figures, under CC BY 4.0. Cite with the DOI.

Full record and citation

Method notes · No. 051

Sewage on the mains: São Paulo’s census tracts in 2022

Português · English

Plate No. 051, the first of four in the collection Sanitation and biomethane: before asking how much gas sewage could yield, where it reaches the mains.

What the files contain

Layer (GPKG)	Geometry	Contents
`setores`	polygon	103,319 tracts: `CD_SETOR`, `CD_MUN`, `NM_MUN`, `situacao`, `dppo` (occupied permanent private households), households by sewage destination (`esgoto_rede` mains, `esgoto_ligada` tank linked to mains, `esgoto_septica` septic tank, `esgoto_rudimentar` pit, `esgoto_vala` ditch, `esgoto_rio` river, `esgoto_outra` other, `esgoto_sem` no toilet) and by rubbish destination (`lixo_coletado` collected, `lixo_cacamba` skip, `lixo_queimado` burnt, `lixo_enterrado` buried, `lixo_terreno` dumped, `lixo_outro` other), `classe_rede` (1 to 6), `destino` (leading), `classe_lixo` (0 to 5) and `sem_domicilio`
`regioes_intermediarias`	polygon	11 intermediate geographic regions
`limite_estadual`	polygon	state outline

The GPKG is shared by plates 051, 052 and 053 and is zipped and attached to the saneamento-sp-2026 release. The setores layer carries three QGIS styles, one per plate (esgoto_na_rede is the default). Polygons were simplified to about 10 m. Withheld counts are empty (NULL).

Method

2022 Census tract aggregates (household characteristics, parts 1 and 2): occupied permanent private households and where the sewage from the bathroom or toilet goes.
Connected: sewage to the mains or storm drain, or to a septic tank linked to the mains, over the tract’s total households. Six classes: up to 10%, 10 to 50%, 50 to 80%, 80 to 95%, 95 to 99% and over 99%.
Confidentiality. IBGE replaces small tract counts with X. In the variables used here, no 1 or 2 appears in São Paulo’s data, while 3 and 4 appear thousands of times; an X therefore hides a 1 or a 2. An X is never read as zero: a tract gets a class only when the class is the same with X = 1 and with X = 2. The 3,209 tracts whose class depends on the omitted value (163,490 households) are hatched as no data.
Tracts become a 0.002° grid (about 200 m) to fit the state-wide plate; the 2,391 tracts with no occupied household are light grey.
State and municipal totals: SIDRA table 6805, without confidentiality cuts.

Limitations

The Census asks where sewage goes, not whether it is treated. Connected does not mean treated.
A large rural tract weighs a lot on the map and little in the numbers, which is why the panel measures the classes in households, not area.
The 200 m grid loses the smallest urban tracts; the GPKG has them all.

View this map’s folder on GitHub