South America is known for its abundance of cultures, cuisines, geography, and biodiversity. Peru is a country consisting of three main regions (coastal, highlands, jungle). Peru also contains 4% of all the fresh water in the world. It obtains water from three main vertices; the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the famous Lake Titicaca. The most detrimental natural process that affects the water abundance in Peru is known as El Niño. This causes warming along the coastal region and heavy rainfall in the highlands and jungle.
Let us run a thought experiment. Picture yourself standing on a mountain with forests. To the west you see the jungle, birds calling insects chirping, the smell of moss in the air. To the east you see waves crashing on the coast, fisherman getting their daily quota of fish. On top of this you can see the powerful Amazon river roaring to the west all the way to Brazil. Do you see a shortage of water? I surely didn’t!
Now I want you to examine the picture below, this now a brown river contaminated with sewage, domestic waste, agricultural waste, and industry waste feeds into the Amazon river. This is the Huatanay river the second most contaminated river in Peru. Once upon a time this river was used for drinking water, outdoor activities, and they the river used to be lined with small local farms. Now it us used as a disposal bin, and a place for scraps by the dogs in the area. Now I will ask you again does there seem to be a shortage of water? Possibly not? The real question is how much drinking water is readily available from their natural resources and the answer is little to none. Everyone in Peru drinks bottled water, even food preparation is sometimes done with bottled water. To think that there is so much water in Peru, so much rain, so many rivers, yet no drinking water from these natural resources.
Here lies the problem in many places around the world, we have this abundance of water but due to other factors such as deforestation, build up of toxins, air pollution, water pollution, and soil erosion. We see a shortage of drinking water readily available for the people in these areas especially those who are socially vulnerable. In Peru the Autoridad Nacional de Agua (ANA) or the National Authority of water has been trying to solve this issue. Even so they are still after several years in the first step of classifying water and identifying the pollution sources. Part of this program was to formulate research questions to approach this problem with water and lack of resources. This was not an easy thing to approach especially since there are so many factors involved both socially and politically.
I have one final request of you next time you are drinking water from your tap or even brushing your teeth and using tap water to rinse your mouth. Be grateful that your water is clean enough and safe! Be grateful that water is free at restaurants and you don’t need to worry about having an upset stomach from simple activities such as washing your vegetables in the sink. We are very fortunate in the states to have policies such as the clean water act. As leaders and lovers of the environment no matter where you go do your part to keep our worlds water supply a little cleaner.
