Why should watersheds in Ecuador be protected, such as the Daule River?

“Water basins such as micro-basins generate environmental services. Water is an indispensable resource of life that is useful for human beings and for the biodiversity or diversity of species that inhabit it, both plants, native species, trees… Water is essential for life”, says the engineer Xavier Salgado, specialist in Agroecology and Sustainable Development.

And since they are important in everyone’s life, it is necessary to protect them. In Ecuador, there are funds that were formed for this purpose. One of these is the Guayaquil Water Fund for the Conservation of the Daule River Basin (Fondagua), which was created in 2016 to ensure the supply of water in quantity and quality.

But what is a water fund?

It is a financial mechanism that makes it possible to develop actions for the conservation of hydrographic basins and give sustainability to the benefits obtained from them. With this, it is possible to work on controlling erosion, sedimentation and flooding, in electricity generation, irrigation, in the conservation of biodiversity and water in the long term, among others.

The Daule river basin is an important point because it currently supplies some 5 million people in areas and provinces such as Guayas, Manabí, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas and also the area that goes from Chongón to Santa Elena, explains Giovanni Ginatta, technical secretary of the Guayaquil Water Fund (Fondagua).

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Additionally, there is industrial and agricultural use. For this reason, the watershed is important for Guayaquil and the region. With the creation of these funds, international and national resources can be attracted to work on various fronts. One of these is the promotion of good agricultural practices.

“Agriculture is one of the human activities that on the one hand depend on the basin’s water, but also have an impact on the basin. The misuse of the soil, erosion, the misuse of water, the wrong distribution of chemical products, the use or abuse of pesticides and so on have an impact on water. That is why we are working with some projects”, says Ginatta.

One of these is the La Fuente project, financed by the European Union and involving the Municipality of Guayaquil, the Casa Grande University and the International Center for Research on the El Niño Phenomenon (Ciifen), which seeks, among others, to work with communities of Guayas and Manabí, especially to promote good practices for “more sustainable, regenerative agriculture that better treats water, soil, and, therefore, has less impact on the ecosystem and hydrographic basins,” adds the secretary of fondagua. Another program is the training work for farmers in the lower Daule basin.

Company actions, keys to reduce environmental impact

Xavier Salgado affirms that the technical assistance that farmers should receive for good waste management, control of tree planting, planting and crops that are made near watersheds is vital, since bad waste and all practices that generate contamination Even if they originate in the páramos, they end up reaching low-lying areas, as occurs in Guayas and Guayaquil.

And this causes problems like sedimentation. He gives an example of the islet El Palmar. That later translates into problems such as floods. Salgado even promotes initiatives such as planting trees in the lower Guayas basin. This will allow a vegetation cover to have a balance in the soil and in the watershed.

For this reason, adds this expert, it is important to invest in and maintain this and other sustainable practices in favor of the environment in the long term. (YO)