Pablo García and the megasequía in Chile: "Our lakes are already dry and our rivers are drying up"
Professor Pablo García, Ph.D from the Faculty of Forest Sciences and Nature Conservation of the University of Chile, draws attention to the behavior of the lakes and rivers of the central zone of Chile in the context of the long drought affecting the country. The academic assures that the situation is serious "because our lakes are already dry and our rivers are drying up."
Drought is a threat that extends over much of the Chilean territory and has forced farmers to abandon crops that they have produced for years and reinvent themselves with others that have less demand for water resources. Chile is among the 10 countries most affected by climate change in the world and almost 80% of the national territory is affected by drought.
"Chile has always been accustomed to using a lot of water, and in the face of this situation of drought, the population continues to behave as if there were plenty of water," says Professor García, adding: "The consequences of climate change are believed to be they will be seen in a hundred years, or far ahead, so this problem is not treated urgently, "he emphasizes.
He argues that he feels there is no coordination between the use of land and water resources and states that it is urgently necessary to promote and promote the materialization of an important forest area in the central zone of the country. At this point he agrees with the director of the Center for Agriculture and Environment (Agrimed) of the Faculty of Agronomic Sciences of the University of Chile, Dr. Fernando Santibáñez, who argues that one way to reverse this deficiency would be to have a policy of incentives for reforestation with local species, which according to the expert is not done in Chile, although it does in other countries. "In the United States there are so-called 'conservation districts', where the inhabitants of a territory agree to contribute to its conservation, receiving subsidies from the State and stamps for the products generated in the area that certify that they come from areas of collaborative protection of nature. "He says.
Professor Garcia also calls on authorities to build waterways, recharge aquifers, build reservoirs, and treat seawater for agricultural use, since "we must prepare for the future, which will be even more extreme in terms of scarcity of water resources ".
The national consumption of water in Chile is 4710m3 / s and the largest user of this natural resource is agricultural activity. Figures from Unesco estimate that the costs of this phenomenon can affect the economy between 5% and 20% of world GDP. As an example, for an olive you need to invest 4 liters of water, for a avocado 100 liters are required, and to produce a glass of wine 150 liters of water are required, so it is urgently required to apply more technology to agriculture to turn it into a sustainable activity in the totality of its process.
The infrastructure available to store and distribute the water must be improved, a matter in which the State has not reinvested for decades. Thus, Professor Santibáñez denounces that "there are areas where there are still irrigation channels from the colonial era, even in Santiago, and from the capital to the south most of these are not covered", which clearly diminishes its effectiveness.
Fernando Santibáñez also draws attention to the fact that storage capacity must be increased. “According to our calculations, between 2 and 3 billion cubic meters of stored water are missing in the central zone, in addition to the available infrastructure. This does not mean that large reservoirs are needed, medium and small facilities can be combined to contain liquid that is not absorbed by the land to prevent it from being lost in the ocean ”, he says.
"We have to have an integrated public policy of the territories, which focuses on the entire hydrological cycle," he said, so that they can be combined.
Chile is one of the few countries in Latin America that does not train expert professionals in the sustainable management of water resources. There is almost no profession of hydrologist.
Source: Martín Carrillo O. - Blueberries Consulting
Previous article
PMA Fresh Connections: Chilenext article
Blockchain comes to Chile ...ARTÍCULOS RELACIONADOS
