¿Es Colombia potencia mundial del agua?

WEBVTT

1
00:00:06.919 --> 00:00:11.199
I' m Roberto Pombo. Welcome
to my questions. An average rush program

2
00:00:11.279 --> 00:00:22.760
sponsored by CAFAM family compensation box.
We are going through a critical moment of

3
00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:27.719
global warming and a particularly aggressive child
phenomenon. Several reservoirs in the country are

4
00:00:27.800 --> 00:00:32.759
in red numbers. It' s
Colombia, a world water power. We

5
00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:38.759
are ready to face a possible water
crisis. For this chapter we spoke with

6
00:00:38.799 --> 00:00:43.119
Representative Julia Miranda, with former Minister
of Environment Carlos Correa, with Santiago Matamala,

7
00:00:43.679 --> 00:00:48.399
water manager, with Erica Castro,
PhD in environment and land planning and

8
00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:53.399
professor at the University of Medellín,
with Felipe Valderrama, water management coordinator of

9
00:00:53.399 --> 00:01:00.240
the Wetlands Foundation. This is chapter
eighty- five of my alleged welcome.

10
00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:06.879
A friend recently made me realize that
this year marks the 30th anniversary of the

11
00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:11.159
football World Cup that he organized in
the United States, a country that will

12
00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:15.239
once again host the next one.
Colombia came as a favorite to that World

13
00:01:15.560 --> 00:01:19.560
Cup, something that had never happened. It was inevitable not to get excited

14
00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:23.840
that summer, that 18th June,
when the selection commanded by Carlos in Pie

15
00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:30.560
Valderrama was going to debut against the
Romania of George Harlie. That team was

16
00:01:30.680 --> 00:01:34.879
one of the best we had,
with several players in clubs abroad, on

17
00:01:34.920 --> 00:01:38.519
the floor of Europe and at its
best and as if it were not enough,

18
00:01:38.159 --> 00:01:42.319
it was in that illuminatory that Colombia
scored Argentina five to zero in Buenos

19
00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:47.879
Aires. Conditions were given. There
was a quality team and, at least,

20
00:01:48.120 --> 00:01:52.640
in the role the rivals of the
group Romania Switzerland in the United States

21
00:01:52.840 --> 00:01:57.040
were not a matter of much concern. We were favorites for the first time

22
00:01:57.799 --> 00:02:01.799
I peeled myself as favorites. However, as we all know, the illusion

23
00:02:01.879 --> 00:02:07.760
lasted little and that balloon crashed into
our faces very quickly. The debooth party

24
00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:10.879
was against Romania, which the coup
de facto was immediate. Only at sixteen

25
00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:15.039
minutes. Romania is the first goal. Then, in the thirty- four

26
00:02:15.039 --> 00:02:19.919
minute, Cagui made us that famous
golazo from outside the area at forty-

27
00:02:20.360 --> 00:02:23.639
three, the trentes counted head and
kept us in the game, but of

28
00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:29.240
two minutes the final Romania made the
third goal. The second match was against

29
00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:34.199
the host team in the United States, a country with little football culture and

30
00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:38.080
that part of the story is even
more tragic. The first goal was a

31
00:02:38.120 --> 00:02:42.120
goal car. After thirteen minutes of
the country defense, Andrés Escobar, the

32
00:02:42.919 --> 00:02:46.240
party remained one. Colombia lost,
was eliminated from the World Cup. But

33
00:02:46.360 --> 00:02:52.319
the worst thing was that because of
that autogol Escobar' s fate was sealed

34
00:02:52.520 --> 00:02:58.360
forever and he was killed shortly afterwards. There are many conjectures, hypotheses and

35
00:02:58.439 --> 00:03:02.039
explanations of how that sequelation ended up, Colombia ended up eliminated and last in

36
00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:06.759
its group when it arrived as a
favorite. However, I believe that the

37
00:03:06.840 --> 00:03:09.919
favorite label can do more harm than
good if it is not managed with maturity

38
00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:15.240
and responsibility, and I think something
similar could be happening to us as a

39
00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:19.400
country. But this time we are
not talking about football, but about something

40
00:03:19.960 --> 00:03:23.039
much worse has he heard of Colombia
as a world power of water. Suddenly

41
00:03:23.159 --> 00:03:28.599
not with those exact words, but
for a good time we have been breast

42
00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:32.240
- feeding for our water resources,
our rivers, moors, wetlands, etcetera.

43
00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:39.639
The non- governmental organization for the
conservation of the environment WWF emphasizes that

44
00:03:39.840 --> 00:03:45.159
Colombia has six snowfalls and more than
forty- eight thousand wetlands between rivers,

45
00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:51.039
lakes, lagoons, swamps, reefs
and others. What we have seen in

46
00:03:51.039 --> 00:03:53.840
recent weeks in Bogotá, a city
with several water sources, can give us

47
00:03:53.960 --> 00:03:59.960
an idea of what awaits us.
According to the World Water Association, nearly

48
00:04:00.319 --> 00:04:05.319
one third of renewable water resources are
in South America. Colombia ranks third in

49
00:04:05.439 --> 00:04:11.319
the list of countries with the highest
amount of water. The country also has

50
00:04:11.319 --> 00:04:15.919
five large water areas, the Pacific, Magdalena and Cauca, Orinoquia and Amazonas,

51
00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:21.199
each with a great ecosystem variety.
There is also the fact that in

52
00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:25.879
the country there are fifty percent of
the world' s moors from which the

53
00:04:25.920 --> 00:04:30.279
main river bodies on which eighty-
five percent of the water for human consumption,

54
00:04:30.519 --> 00:04:35.360
irrigation and electricity generation depend are born. That is, we have half

55
00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:41.160
of the ecosystems in which there is
vegetation, like the frallejones, which are

56
00:04:41.240 --> 00:04:45.639
a kind of sponges that take the
fog and transform it into water, a

57
00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:50.079
unique species that even has its own
cartoon. The Frailejón Ernesto Pérez Hello.

58
00:04:50.959 --> 00:04:57.680
My name is dance On Ernesto Pérez
Tequero. Greeting doesn' t know me.

59
00:04:59.319 --> 00:05:03.240
According to National Parks of Colombia,
the moors provide 70 percent of the

60
00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:08.000
drinking water that the whole country has, but despite all this, they are

61
00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:13.000
at risk. The closest example we
saw earlier this year, when forest fires

62
00:05:13.079 --> 00:05:17.560
consumed several parts of the country.
According to the risk management unit, the

63
00:05:17.879 --> 00:05:23.560
flames consumed something, as well as
eighteen thousand hectares of vegetation. The images

64
00:05:23.560 --> 00:05:28.839
of burned friars caused me deep sadness. They are plants that take many years

65
00:05:29.079 --> 00:05:33.680
to grow grow by an inch each
year. Unfortunately, that is not the

66
00:05:33.759 --> 00:05:39.160
only damage that global warming has done
to moors. According to Carlos Rivera,

67
00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:43.879
director of the Biology Department of Javeriana
University and one of the researchers of a

68
00:05:43.959 --> 00:05:47.639
study on the lakes of the moors
of the country, the temperature of these

69
00:05:47.720 --> 00:05:53.160
waters is rising and this makes organic
matter decompose faster and this water is no

70
00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:59.680
longer drinking. But fires are the
only predators of those moors or there are

71
00:05:59.800 --> 00:06:04.040
older ones. Mining, livestock,
agriculture are also invading their territories and destroying

72
00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:11.079
that ecosystem. According to figures from
the National Mining Agency, in only two

73
00:06:11.079 --> 00:06:15.879
thousand sixteen there were four hundred and
fifty- one mining titles on moors,

74
00:06:15.040 --> 00:06:20.160
without counting the unregistered and those made
in the shadow of illegality. According to

75
00:06:20.279 --> 00:06:25.160
Conrado de Jesús Tobón, professor at
the Faculty of Agrarian Sciences of the National

76
00:06:25.240 --> 00:06:29.959
University of Colombia. I open Comillas. Fifty- seven percent of wasteland ecosystems

77
00:06:30.079 --> 00:06:34.519
have been lost in the country.
The rest are detrimental where the soils have

78
00:06:34.600 --> 00:06:40.120
been lost, the vegetation has disappeared, which some are with low degradation.

79
00:06:40.600 --> 00:06:45.360
I close quotes. In order not
to lose hope, I sought the representative

80
00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:48.639
to the Chamber and former director of
Natural National Parks, Julia Miranda, to

81
00:06:48.720 --> 00:06:54.439
tell me what we can do to
protect them from the country. That'

82
00:06:54.480 --> 00:06:59.480
s what he told me. We
all know that moors receive the moisture from

83
00:06:59.560 --> 00:07:05.519
the Amazon rainforest that stores it in
their ecosystem. Everything is designed for that

84
00:07:05.639 --> 00:07:11.959
wonderful phenomenon to happen, to capture
the humidity of the clouds that come from

85
00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:17.319
the Amazon, to collect it and
drop by drop, to store it and

86
00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:25.519
distribute it in small streams and streams
and rivers, and to make it that

87
00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:30.959
ecosystem that succeeds in making the distribution
of the water that comes from the Amazon

88
00:07:30.959 --> 00:07:35.079
a reality. Then, without a
doubt, we must take care of the

89
00:07:35.199 --> 00:07:40.959
receiving ecosystem that fauna, which contributes
to the dispersion of the seeds and that

90
00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:45.319
the vegetation is maintained. Both fauna
and flora are indispensable for the moor to

91
00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:54.480
fulfill its function of water retention,
storage and subsequent water release. But,

92
00:07:54.600 --> 00:07:59.319
of course, preserving the fundamental ecosystem, that of the moors. But,

93
00:07:59.399 --> 00:08:05.000
without a doubt, actions aimed at
protecting the Amazon rainforest, preventing its deforestation,

94
00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:13.759
preventing logging, fires and the loss
of the Amazonian biome. It is

95
00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:20.040
crucial to achieve the water resource on
which we all depend, especially in this

96
00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:24.959
country, which has its source of
energy in water and which, in addition,

97
00:08:26.040 --> 00:08:30.600
we need it for all productive activities
and for the well- being and

98
00:08:30.680 --> 00:08:37.480
quality of life of all citizens.
The increase in temperatures that the planet has

99
00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:41.000
experienced, beating a historical réfort,
has made the channel of important rivers like

100
00:08:41.159 --> 00:08:45.879
Magdalena and Cauca, the red numbers
according to the monitoring station of the IDAAM

101
00:08:45.879 --> 00:08:50.159
at the point where the Nique Canal
is born. Magdalena levels have fallen since

102
00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:56.879
last November by more than four meters. In February, the National Risk Management

103
00:08:56.960 --> 00:09:01.679
Unit warned that two hundred and thirty- three municipalities in sixteen departments had a

104
00:09:01.720 --> 00:09:07.240
shortage of drinking water and that of
those sixteen there was a rationing of the

105
00:09:07.399 --> 00:09:13.840
liquid and another six hundred and two
municipalities were susceptible to damage. According to

106
00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:16.279
the Diario de la República, the
regions of the east of the country,

107
00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:20.600
among which are the reservoirs serving Bogotá
and Antioquia, are those that have the

108
00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:24.879
lowest levels, with twelve comma sixty- seven percent and thirty comma ninety-

109
00:09:24.279 --> 00:09:30.960
six percent, respectively. It is
followed by calgas with thirty- one zero

110
00:09:31.080 --> 00:09:35.240
seven percent occupation in its Valle reservoirs
with thirty- three comma twenty- seven

111
00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:39.200
percent, the Caribbean region with forty
comma thirty- four percent, and the

112
00:09:39.240 --> 00:09:43.240
Central region with forty- two comma
sixty- eight percent. It seems that

113
00:09:43.320 --> 00:09:48.519
rationings are the last resort to be
taken and, of course, it is

114
00:09:48.600 --> 00:09:52.679
not a guarantee that reservoirs and rivers
will recover. In fact, while recording,

115
00:09:52.799 --> 00:09:56.879
this chapter completes a week of rationing
in Bogotá and the goal of reducing

116
00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:01.039
water consumption from eighteen thousand liters per
second to fifteen million per second has not

117
00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:05.679
been met. According to the meteorological
authorities. The phenomenon of the girl,

118
00:10:05.879 --> 00:10:09.080
that is, the rainy season,
should reach maximum in July, but,

119
00:10:09.519 --> 00:10:13.840
assuming that the rains began this same
weekend, there is no guarantee that the

120
00:10:13.960 --> 00:10:16.960
Chingasa dam, one of which is
supplied to the city, will be filled.

121
00:10:18.960 --> 00:10:24.440
This explains it to the middle zero
seventy. Juan Guillermo Saldarriaga Valderrama,

122
00:10:24.759 --> 00:10:28.720
professor at the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering and expert in water distribution and

123
00:10:28.759 --> 00:10:33.720
drainage systems. According to Salvarriaga,
Chinga dams the water that comes from the

124
00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:39.759
river oratiques a body of water that
flows into the orine and therefore has an

125
00:10:39.879 --> 00:10:45.519
Amazon rain regime different from the Andean
rain regime of Bogotá. And the phenomenon

126
00:10:45.519 --> 00:10:48.879
of the girl brings rain to the
Andean region, but it can mean less

127
00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.320
rain to the Amazon region. For
the teacher salt of Arriaga, the administration

128
00:10:54.399 --> 00:10:58.720
of the Galan Mayor let himself take
the night to take action because the problem

129
00:10:58.600 --> 00:11:03.360
of water shortages could be foreseen for
about eight months, when the phenomenon of

130
00:11:03.360 --> 00:11:07.519
the child began. To that reflection
of the professor Sal de Arriaga, I

131
00:11:07.519 --> 00:11:11.080
would add that the national government and
already has a good time and the national

132
00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:16.600
unit of risk management also chose the
night and they delayed to act on a

133
00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:20.440
problem that was growing throughout the country. In fact, in March of two

134
00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:24.559
thousand twenty- three, in the
debate of political control to the then Minister

135
00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:30.480
of Mines, Irenebeles, Senator David
Luna warned about the impact of the phenomenon

136
00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:33.919
of the child. Former Minister Belis
responded in her account from x to urocomillas.

137
00:11:35.200 --> 00:11:39.879
There is no risk of electric energy
reasoning in Colombia. We do not

138
00:11:39.960 --> 00:11:45.279
understand with what interest some people want
to generate panic the reservoirs of the country

139
00:11:45.320 --> 00:11:50.120
are above the average of two decades
ago, even those of two thousand fifteen,

140
00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:54.000
when the phenomenon of the child was
presented. I close Comillas and while

141
00:11:54.080 --> 00:11:58.399
global warming and the child phenomenon have
a very important part of the blame in

142
00:11:58.480 --> 00:12:03.639
this serious episode, the population growth
of cities has also done their thing.

143
00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:07.679
In two thousand and twenty, the
World Bank published an article in which it

144
00:12:07.759 --> 00:12:13.720
states that I open Comillas as a
result of climate change and population growth,

145
00:12:13.519 --> 00:12:20.000
the availability of water has been decreasing
over the last two decades, from extreme

146
00:12:20.039 --> 00:12:24.799
droughts to severe floods. Colombia is
already presenting symptoms of water insecurity throughout its

147
00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:28.639
territory that reflect its problems of excess, scarcity and contamination of the water I

148
00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:35.200
close quotes. I see these data
and think they will reach the water sources

149
00:12:35.399 --> 00:12:39.639
available today for Colombia of two thousand
thirty. After asking the question to the

150
00:12:39.720 --> 00:12:45.960
former Minister of the Environment, Carlos
Correa. Colombia is a hydric power.

151
00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:50.840
Today reservoirs have the capacity. What
happens is that the reserves are below thirty

152
00:12:50.919 --> 00:12:56.679
percent. Here we have to do
studies and update the demand. Seventy percent

153
00:12:56.759 --> 00:13:03.279
of the population is in commodity cities
growing. What capacity is needed. What

154
00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:07.720
we are seeing today are effects of
climate change. This drought, the phenomenon

155
00:13:07.879 --> 00:13:11.559
of the child we have suffered,
will not improve. Next year' s

156
00:13:11.919 --> 00:13:16.360
probably gonna get worse. According to
the forecasts. Then we need data,

157
00:13:16.639 --> 00:13:22.240
measurement, projection, planning, a
lot of environmental education. These are two

158
00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:26.399
important issues. One is the water
resource, the water source, and the

159
00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:31.799
other is the public service and water
use. But we can' t say

160
00:13:31.799 --> 00:13:33.639
if in the year two thousand thirty
we' re going to have the resource

161
00:13:33.720 --> 00:13:35.480
or not, if we don'
t do something now. The problem is

162
00:13:35.559 --> 00:13:43.840
now that we can project and have
the water source conserved in all those protected

163
00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:46.879
areas that we have and the use
of water, which will be fundamental.

164
00:13:46.960 --> 00:13:50.399
From now on, where we,
the citizens, have to have greater responsibility,

165
00:13:50.200 --> 00:13:54.039
but public policies must also be in
place. In the year two thousand

166
00:13:54.080 --> 00:14:00.759
twenty- two the resolution of water
refusal was signed. It must be seen

167
00:14:00.799 --> 00:14:05.120
which sectors are now using the most
water, for example, the agriculture sectors,

168
00:14:05.200 --> 00:14:09.120
and with that resolution, they have
the possibility of refusing water for irrigation

169
00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:16.759
districts, maintaining other uses and not
being wasting water using it from the sources

170
00:14:16.799 --> 00:14:24.519
that are currently supplying cities across the
country. And if, on the one

171
00:14:24.519 --> 00:14:26.840
hand, population growth does not help, on the other hand, the amount

172
00:14:26.919 --> 00:14:31.679
of water we consume, much less
attentive to this fact. According to an

173
00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:37.360
OCD report, Colombia is the country
that spends the most water per capita in

174
00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:41.639
the world, in a thousand nine
hundred eighty- eight cubic meters per person,

175
00:14:41.039 --> 00:14:45.759
and that in the country access to
water is not yet a guaranteed right

176
00:14:45.799 --> 00:14:50.039
for everyone. According to the Dane
In two thousand twenty- three three million

177
00:14:50.279 --> 00:14:54.879
people had no access to drinking water, of which two six million live in

178
00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:00.320
rural areas and zero six in urban
areas. Last year, within the framework

179
00:15:00.360 --> 00:15:03.799
of the United Nations Water Conference,
the Ministry of Housing, City and Territory

180
00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:11.120
published this fact. In Colombia,
12 million people have inadequate access to drinking

181
00:15:11.159 --> 00:15:15.600
water, that is, twenty-
five percent a quarter of Colombians and in

182
00:15:15.639 --> 00:15:20.159
Colombia, about one point, five
million people perform their physiological needs in the

183
00:15:20.399 --> 00:15:28.480
open air and only fifty- two
percent of waste water is treated. We

184
00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:33.159
heard what the Minister of that portfolio, Catalina Velasco, said, but we

185
00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:37.039
know that the worst forms of backwardness
in water and sanitation occur in a context

186
00:15:37.240 --> 00:15:43.399
of poverty, inequality, exclusion.
We face critical situations of deprivation in rural

187
00:15:43.480 --> 00:15:48.960
areas and in small municipalities for indigenous
and Afro- Colombian communities, about women

188
00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:56.519
and children. We are only six
years away to meet the deadline set for

189
00:15:56.559 --> 00:16:00.000
the achievement of the sustainable development goals
that were set at two thousand and fifteen.

190
00:16:00.679 --> 00:16:04.559
Last year, Tania Santos, coordinator
of the Water Group at the Stockholm

191
00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:10.320
Environmental Institute, and David Zamora,
associate researcher at that same institute in Latin

192
00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:15.720
America, published an article in El
Espectador in which they show that we are

193
00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:19.279
far from meeting goal six, which
proposes to ensure access to water in terms

194
00:16:19.320 --> 00:16:25.519
of quality, quantity, sanitation and
sustainable management for all. According to the

195
00:16:25.559 --> 00:16:27.759
authors of the text, by the
year two thousand and twenty, only seventy

196
00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:33.399
- three per cent of its population
had access to safe and managed drinking water

197
00:16:33.399 --> 00:16:37.600
services. Eighteen per cent of the
population uses safe sanitation services and only twenty

198
00:16:37.960 --> 00:16:44.440
- one per cent of domestic waste
water is treated in the National Water Survey

199
00:16:44.480 --> 00:16:48.080
of two thousand twenty- two done
by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development,

200
00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:52.919
and the ideam found that water demand
occurs especially in the region of the

201
00:16:52.919 --> 00:16:56.519
country where less water is available,
that is, in the Magdalena Cauca basin,

202
00:16:57.200 --> 00:17:02.120
where sixty- four per cent of
the resource is distributed and seventy-

203
00:17:02.799 --> 00:17:07.519
four per cent of the country'
s population is settled. A sample of

204
00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:11.119
this can be seen in Bogotá,
where, according to data from the Planning

205
00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:15.039
Secretariat, in sectors of strata six, two commas are consumed six times more

206
00:17:15.079 --> 00:17:19.839
water than stadoun. Why, if
we have so many water sources, it

207
00:17:19.920 --> 00:17:23.880
has been so difficult and purple to
guarantee access to water. To all Colombians

208
00:17:23.920 --> 00:17:30.000
the question tells Erica Castro, a
doctor in Environment and Territory Planning, innocent

209
00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:34.680
from the University of Medellín. This
answered me well. This is a rather

210
00:17:34.920 --> 00:17:41.640
complex question. Why the problems of
drinking water in some municipalities of Colombia can

211
00:17:41.880 --> 00:17:45.599
be due to a combination of factors
in the first place, the diverse geography

212
00:17:45.720 --> 00:17:51.920
of the country, which has mountainous
regions and tropical forests, can make it

213
00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:56.880
difficult to implement drinking water infrastructures because
they are very remote or difficult to access.

214
00:17:57.039 --> 00:18:03.640
Also the lack of adequate investment and
infrastructure and the maintenance of poor infrastructure

215
00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:08.200
that contributes to water scarcity. Other
factors may be water pollution due to industrial

216
00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:15.279
agricultural or mining activity, which affect
the quality of available water. We can

217
00:18:15.319 --> 00:18:19.240
also talk about deforestation, environmental degradation, which has a negative impact on the

218
00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:25.279
country' s water resources. We
must not forget the lack of adequate regulation,

219
00:18:25.839 --> 00:18:30.720
corruption and unequal distribution of water resources. We can also talk about the

220
00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:36.680
impacts of climate variability, which in
many cases can lead to both floods and

221
00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:41.680
drought, which can affect the availability
of the resource. It also turns out

222
00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:48.319
that there are problems on the issue
of inefficient water distribution and, in that

223
00:18:48.559 --> 00:18:52.480
case, including a problem of discrimination. In any case, it should be

224
00:18:52.519 --> 00:19:00.240
addressed through a comprehensive approach and the
inclusion of water resources and traditional water sources.

225
00:19:00.400 --> 00:19:03.799
They' re going through a critical
moment. According to experts, the

226
00:19:03.880 --> 00:19:07.599
future is in underground water. In
the National Water Survey of two thousand twenty

227
00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:11.279
- two mentioned a moment ago,
despite the fact that seventy- eight percent

228
00:19:11.319 --> 00:19:17.240
of the territory could take advantage of
groundwater. Only 15 per cent of aquifer

229
00:19:17.359 --> 00:19:21.119
systems are known to be fundamental to
the production of drinking water, that is,

230
00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:25.720
a water source that has seven times
more potential for water availability than surface

231
00:19:25.799 --> 00:19:30.599
water, but we do not know
it. The paper also notes that these

232
00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:34.279
water sources are safer than reservoirs because, among other reasons, they do not

233
00:19:34.359 --> 00:19:41.440
have pollution or evaporation problems. We
could say that better than standing in gold

234
00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:45.440
is that we' re standing on
water. I looked for Santiago Matabala,

235
00:19:47.279 --> 00:19:52.799
water manager, a company that has
dedicated several decades to exploring groundwater. I

236
00:19:52.839 --> 00:19:56.480
asked him why if there are so
many sources of groundwater in the country we

237
00:19:56.920 --> 00:20:00.920
haven' t been able to take
advantage of them any more. This told

238
00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:06.640
me well, Colombia has a giant
potential around groundwater. That' s for

239
00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:10.960
sure. However, the use has
not been the right one because we mainly

240
00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:15.640
need information. And there are several
reasons for this ignorance. First, therefore,

241
00:20:15.720 --> 00:20:19.359
the lack of hydrogeological information, which
is a complex, difficult technical task,

242
00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:22.559
but which has to accelerate. And
the second is that groundwater is not

243
00:20:22.759 --> 00:20:30.400
a well- known or very famous
solution for many people in Colombia. Despite

244
00:20:30.400 --> 00:20:33.119
this, there are super successful examples. For example, in the Cauca valley,

245
00:20:33.400 --> 00:20:37.880
the cane companies and environmental authority,
the BC have worked as a team,

246
00:20:38.039 --> 00:20:44.759
they have already developed many very successful
solutions where, therefore, they have

247
00:20:44.839 --> 00:20:49.079
shown that knowledge and collaboration are key. A corporation, let' s say

248
00:20:49.440 --> 00:20:52.319
agile, that empowers and controls and
regulates. But in order for us to

249
00:20:52.359 --> 00:20:59.519
achieve the real potential, we must
overcome some barriers in the corporations to support

250
00:20:59.640 --> 00:21:03.920
and it is easy to have more
qualified technical personnel, with resources and with

251
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:08.039
will in terms of processes, so
that it is easier to have permits to

252
00:21:08.079 --> 00:21:11.720
drill and for water concessions, because
in many cases they are permits in most

253
00:21:11.720 --> 00:21:15.680
of Colombia they are permits that last
more than a year to get them out.

254
00:21:15.720 --> 00:21:18.559
And that makes people even skip the
process and not legalize their wells or

255
00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:23.119
their good water solutions is a resource
that we have to finish understanding to be

256
00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:27.839
able to exploit it, deepen the
research, speed up the procedures and with

257
00:21:27.960 --> 00:21:33.000
a social and political will that allows
us to deepen. In these solutions we

258
00:21:33.039 --> 00:21:38.240
have an opportunity to maintain ourselves as
a water power and groundwater, without a

259
00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:44.039
doubt, plays a fundamental role in
that objective to an activity that already uses

260
00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:48.880
this method is agriculture, the sector
that has the most water consumption. According

261
00:21:48.920 --> 00:21:53.359
to the National Water Survey, forty- three point twenty- five percent or

262
00:21:53.480 --> 00:21:59.559
thirteen thousand eighty- four million cubic
meters per year are used in agriculture and

263
00:21:59.559 --> 00:22:07.400
post- harvest activities, followed by
hydroenergy, pisicle activities. Then the household

264
00:22:07.480 --> 00:22:11.279
use that only uses two thousand eight
hundred and fifty- seven million cubic meters

265
00:22:11.319 --> 00:22:18.640
a year. According to an article
on the treatment of wastewater and environmental problems

266
00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:22.680
in the textile sector published by scene, the volume of water used by the

267
00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:27.480
manufacturing industry, according to the dane
in the two thousand twenty, was two

268
00:22:27.519 --> 00:22:33.240
hundred seventy- eight comma one million
cubic meters from a sixty comma seven percent

269
00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:37.319
of surface water, twenty- one
one percent of water supplied by aqueduct companies,

270
00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:41.799
fifteen comma one percent of groundwater and
three percent of rainwater, sea water

271
00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:45.400
and water in a tank cart,
where the industrial activity of textile head clothing

272
00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:55.480
and furs records a consumption of eleven
comma seven million cubic meters. The world

273
00:22:55.480 --> 00:22:59.720
in general is going through a water
crisis, excuse me in advance, but

274
00:22:59.799 --> 00:23:03.640
the figures that you are going to
hear below are not encouraging. According to

275
00:23:03.759 --> 00:23:07.400
the last water risk by the World
Resources Institute, twenty- five countries that

276
00:23:07.480 --> 00:23:12.480
house one quarter of the world'
s population face an extremely high water stress

277
00:23:12.519 --> 00:23:19.599
each year that regularly consume almost all
of their available water supply and at least

278
00:23:19.640 --> 00:23:23.440
fifty percent of the world' s
population, about four billion people, live

279
00:23:23.559 --> 00:23:30.240
in conditions of great water scarcity for
at least one month a year. And

280
00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:33.160
if water is not better managed,
population growth, economic development and climate change

281
00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:41.799
are destined to worsen the cynical stress
and to close the lapidary conclusions. For

282
00:23:41.880 --> 00:23:47.079
two thousand and fifty, an additional
billion people are expected to live with extremely

283
00:23:47.160 --> 00:23:52.920
high water stress, even if the
world limits the rise in global temperature by

284
00:23:52.200 --> 00:23:57.160
one coma by three degrees Celsius and
two comma by four degrees Celsius for two

285
00:23:57.240 --> 00:24:02.640
thousand One hundred an optimistic scenario,
and although it is not within countries with

286
00:24:02.720 --> 00:24:04.799
three major cydics, there is a
close example from which we can learn.

287
00:24:04.960 --> 00:24:10.160
Uruguay. At the beginning of July
last year, the reserves of the Paso

288
00:24:10.359 --> 00:24:14.720
Severino dam, the main source of
water for the Uruguayan capital and metropolitan area,

289
00:24:14.880 --> 00:24:19.680
were around two percent. Just reading
that number makes me nervous. This

290
00:24:21.079 --> 00:24:25.880
is especially surprising because Uruguay is a
country with good freshwater sources and was even

291
00:24:25.880 --> 00:24:30.160
recognized by the New York Times as
a sustainable country with some advantage. In

292
00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:36.559
the climate change curve, deforestation in
the Amazon and extreme heat, according to

293
00:24:36.559 --> 00:24:44.519
scientists, were largely responsible for increasing
soil and plant moisture loss. This crisis

294
00:24:44.559 --> 00:24:48.759
resulted in losses that exceeded$ 1
880 billion and affected more than a comma

295
00:24:48.759 --> 00:24:53.680
seven million people. Between two thousand
twenty- eight and two thousand twenty-

296
00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:57.400
three, the agricultural sector lost three
percent of the PIP. The lack of

297
00:24:57.519 --> 00:25:03.599
severin dry water the main source of
water, causing an unprecedented water supply crisis.

298
00:25:04.759 --> 00:25:08.240
The country overcame the crisis. In
December last year, Uruguay' s

299
00:25:08.279 --> 00:25:12.319
Minister of the Environment, Robert Beuvier, told the country' s daily newspaper

300
00:25:12.440 --> 00:25:18.200
that he highlighted the construction of an
emergency dam in Verastiquí over the Saint Lucia

301
00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:23.119
River and the attention they paid to
the most vulnerable population. According to Minister

302
00:25:23.240 --> 00:25:29.960
Bugué, some 500 zero people were
helped between June and September to buy two

303
00:25:30.079 --> 00:25:34.400
liters of bottled water per day.
I cannot fail to see the Uruguay crisis

304
00:25:34.480 --> 00:25:38.920
and ask myself what we can do
to avoid a similar crisis in the country.

305
00:25:40.759 --> 00:25:44.759
I looked for Felipe Valderrama, water
management coordinator of the Wetlands Foundation,

306
00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:49.400
to help me respond and he told
me this. The future we have is

307
00:25:49.400 --> 00:25:56.240
very complex. The idea tells us
that we will have temperature increases of more

308
00:25:56.279 --> 00:25:59.640
than two degrees, reductions in precipitation, that is, in the amount of

309
00:25:59.680 --> 00:26:03.160
rain that falls annually from ten to
forty percent the more than thirty percent of

310
00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:07.160
the country and additionally that the frequency
and intensity of the phenomena of climate variability,

311
00:26:07.720 --> 00:26:11.359
as can be the boy and the
girl, because it will increase.

312
00:26:11.359 --> 00:26:15.759
So every time we' re going
to have more girls, we' re

313
00:26:15.880 --> 00:26:18.440
going to have more boys and they' re going to be harder and harder.

314
00:26:18.440 --> 00:26:19.799
For that reason, the country,
because it has been armored, has

315
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:25.599
tried to generate national climate change policies, a national policy for the comprehensive management

316
00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:30.319
of water resources that have their planning
instruments and that must be developed, interpreted

317
00:26:30.359 --> 00:26:36.359
and applied by autonomous corporations and municipalities. This is taking place in a very

318
00:26:36.440 --> 00:26:40.519
poor way, that is, conceptualization
and participatory approach based on nature and the

319
00:26:40.599 --> 00:26:45.799
communities it has. The Ministry is
not reaching out to corporations and municipalities if,

320
00:26:45.400 --> 00:26:49.440
therefore, we are experiencing impacts in
the territory associated with good planning or

321
00:26:49.519 --> 00:26:53.440
implementation of such planning, among other
things, these breadmaking instruments lack impact indicators.

322
00:26:56.839 --> 00:27:03.119
So we' re investing a lot
of resources planning and running that planning,

323
00:27:03.799 --> 00:27:07.480
not having how to know if we' re doing things right or wrong.

324
00:27:07.599 --> 00:27:10.400
And that' s worse than doing
things wrong, directly worse than doing

325
00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:11.960
things wrong, not knowing that we' re doing things wrong. And that

326
00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:15.319
is a little bit the reality of
the implementation of environmental policy in Colombia.

327
00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:21.400
Then we have to change it drastically, because we have enough policy and instruments

328
00:27:21.480 --> 00:27:25.119
to do it right. And finally, because that has to be accompanied by

329
00:27:25.319 --> 00:27:32.640
massive educational efforts at the national level. We are then world power of water.

330
00:27:33.319 --> 00:27:37.799
If we refer to the number of
ecosystems and tributaries, we could say

331
00:27:37.880 --> 00:27:41.839
yes. But it' s no
good that we have this imaginary troforum,

332
00:27:41.279 --> 00:27:45.960
that we have seas, rivers,
wetlands, moors and lagoons if we don

333
00:27:47.039 --> 00:27:52.240
' t have a multi- point
commitment to protect those ecosystems from activities that

334
00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:57.160
affect them, such as mining,
livestock, hydrocarbon exploitation, to guarantee infrastructure

335
00:27:57.160 --> 00:28:03.039
so that all Colombians can access water
safely, make responsible use of the resource

336
00:28:03.079 --> 00:28:07.400
and address climate change. Without that, the same can happen to us as

337
00:28:07.480 --> 00:28:11.200
the Colombia team in the US World
Cup in a thousand nine hundred and ninety

338
00:28:11.200 --> 00:28:14.720
- four. I am Roberto Pombo, and this was chapter eighty- five

339
00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:18.640
of my questions. See you in
the next chapter from now on. This

340
00:28:18.720 --> 00:28:26.759
chapter of my questions is available on
all podcast platforms. This episode was made

341
00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:32.839
possible thanks to Kafán, family compensation
box, Roberto Pombo Directorate, General Production,

342
00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:37.880
juan Abel Gutiérrez, editorial advisor,
Daniel San Pedro Espina, screenplays juan

343
00:28:37.880 --> 00:28:41.759
Abel Gutiérrez and Johnny Rodríguez, field
production, Marcela Salazar and Lucía Beltrán.

344
00:28:42.720 --> 00:28:45.880
Post- production of audio Carlos Bernal