WE SUPPORT SUSTAINABLE PROJECTS
PHOTOS: WWF
El PeĂąol - GuatapĂŠ reservoir is situated in eastern Antioquia province.
42 % of the forests in the basin have been felled, and this has triggered more erosion.
attributes that made it all possible being lost. 42 per cent of the forests in the basin have been felled in the last 30 years, and this has triggered erosion which today affects 78 per cent of the basin area, something that can be seen in the increased sedimentation in the two great river arteries. According to the most recent National Water Study produced by IDEAM, the quantity of water available per year in the Magdalena-Cauca basin, which
stood at 60,000m3 per inhabitant in 1985, had fallen to slightly less than 45,000m3 in 2014. Population growth has unquestionably had an impact on this indicator, but even so, it is clear that the decline in availability is a consequence of insufficient ecosystem management. Mining , hydrocarbon exploitation, draining wetlands for agriculture, using water for irrigation, building infrastructure works on flood plains, domestic and industrial pollution: all these activities are increasingly limiting the availability of water in a region that is so important for Colombians. Since the situation described affects a majority of Colombia’s population, water supply and demand projections for the country are not encouraging. Unless drastic measures are adopted to alter current water use and consumption habits, it is calculated that by the middle of the present century the water availability figure per capita in the country will have fallen to around 1,000m3 per year, which is equivalent to the values established in literature on this subject for a water crisis. This perspective, which becomes more and more real as the impacts of climate change become a daily occurrence, demands urgent, decisive action. The integration of land management and planning schemes on different scales and from different viewpoints is absolutely essential, in order to guarantee that water is available and managed sustainably for everyone, as enshrined in the sixth Sustainable Development Goal. An ambition of this magnitude requires water custody
It is calculated that by the middle of the century the water availability figure per capita in the country will be around 1,000m3 per year, equivalent to a water crisis. initiatives that involve local governments, environmental authorities, protected area administrators, public services companies and, of course, users. Water custody talks are mechanisms that reduce the number of access and use conflicts that arise and enable agreements to be negotiated, such as the coordinating of protected areas and setting-up of strategic conservation areas that stock rural water supply systems, as demonstrated recently in the basins of the Negro and Nare rivers in eastern Antioquia. However, if the sustainable development goal relating to water management is to achieve the desired dimension, it also needs to become a conservation tool that responds to ecological dynamics that have to be properly assured. There is therefore a need to determine ecological water flows, so that when the time comes to assign extraction and use quotas to different sectors, the minimum quantity of water necessary for the ecosystems to function is respected. Adopting this principle makes it possible to create water reserves, true life assurances which, in addition to guaranteeing water supplies for human beings, conserve the ecological integrity of water systems.
DECEMBER 2017