The Ecological Status of Lake and River Ecosystems of the Tropical Regions of the Americas
Tuesday, 7 June 2016
Sandra R Villamizar1, Sergio M Pineda1, Henry Pai2 and Thomas C Harmon3, (1)Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, School of Civil Engineering, Bucaramanga, Colombia, (2)University of California Merced, Environmental Systems, Merced, CA, United States, (3)University of California Merced, Sierra Nevada Research Institute, Merced, CA, United States
Abstract:
The ecological status of lakes and rivers in the tropical regions of the world is not well understood. Evidence of this statement is given by the distribution of sites and researchers of the GLEON (Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network) community. Four lakes, all in Brazil, out of a total of 153 are located within the tropics (
http://gleon.org/members/lakes/map), and 24 out of 556 registered researchers belong to institutions located within this region of the world (
http://gleon.org/members/map). As new faculty members at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Bucaramanga, Colombia, we are interested in establishing a baseline of the status of the Colombian rivers (natural and impounded) and lakes, that allowed us to understand the particularities of the tropical zones in comparison with the relatively well-understood temperate regions. Ultimately, we want to use this knowledge to inform the decision-making process of water stakeholders for critical cases of infrastructure planning such as the construction and operation of reservoirs for hydropower generation and water consumption. The case of California´s Central Valley (U.S.A.) gives evidence of the disastrous ecological consequences that may arise when water management decisions are based solely on the economic aspect of a project.
