The water scarcity that the world is going through is not a mystery and Chile is not exempt from this phenomenon. Motivated by this, the Faculty of Sciences of the Catholic University of the Santísima Concepción (UCSC) in conjunction with the Diploma in Strategic Planning of Water Resources of the same house of studies, were awarded an Innovation Fund for Competitiveness FIC-R 2022 of the Regional Government of Biobío.
The initiative is entitled: “Landscape management for water security”. Its objective is to develop a local water management strategy, based on the concept of Conservation Landscapes, which allows providing water security to the people who live in decentralized sectors of the Biobío region.
An interdisciplinary team
The team is made up of Robinson Sáez as director, Paulina Medina as coordinator and participating as associate researchers: Sergio Contreras, Pablo González, Iván Vera and Claudio Reyes.
Claudio Reyes values the merger between the associated researchers, who come from the UCSC Faculty of Sciences and the Diploma in Water Resources, which has been implemented since 2022. In addition, the need to standardize those rural sectors that are not classified in the current norm.
“The problem of water resources is complex, since it addresses different dimensions. One of the main ones is the human right to water. We have public policy solutions for urban or concentrated sectors, that is, cities, for semi-concentrated sectors that correspond to rural health services. We do not have a public policy for dispersed sectors that fall below this category”, he explained.
Paulina Medina emphasizes the need to link with the community through citizen science. “Water security is key, to gain access to water and that is related to people’s quality of life, their health or nutrition, for example. 20 points will be taken within the Biobío Region and that are vulnerable with respect to water security. We will deliver information to the communities, we will train them on the subject of water quality and we will give them a kit so that they can carry out the measurements themselves” and know how to interpret their own results from her analysis, she commented.
The academic of the Faculty of Sciences UCSC, Dr. Sergio Contreras emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary work and strategic alliances. “The proposal was collaborative between the researchers.
The idea is to link with the communities, collect information on vulnerable points from the point of view of water security, investigate water quality, we intend to educate and explain the parameters on water quality standards, among others”, he added.
The project will start in March 2023 and runs for 12 months. Work will be carried out jointly with the Association of Municipalities of Biobío and the Wood Corporation (CORMA).
