Mud in reservoir: Levels in the Cantareira reservoir system remain dangerously low. Fires to clear land for agriculture in Sao Felix Do Xingu municipality, Para, Brazil - June 20, 2009. In Brazil's biggest city, a record dry season and ever-increasing demand for water has led to a punishing drought. It has actually been raining quite heavily over the last few days in and around Sao Paulo but it has barely made a drop of difference. The main reservoir system that feeds this immense city is still dangerously low, and it would take months of intense, heavy rainfall for water levels to return to anything like normal. So how does a country that produces an estimated 12% of the world's fresh water end up with a chronic shortage of this most essential resource - in its biggest and most economically important city? It's interesting to note that both the local state government and the federal government have been slow to acknowledge there is a crisis, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. That might have been a politically expedient position to take during the recent election campaign, when the shortage of water in Sao Paulo was a thorny political issue, but the apparent lack of urgency in the city and wider state now is worrying many. At the main Cantareira reservoir system, which feeds much of this city's insatiable demand for water, things have almost reached rock bottom. Huge pipes suck out what water remains as the reservoir dips below 10% of its usual capacity.