Communicating water monitoring in Bolivia
20 November 2015
ucl.ac.uk/silva/rdr/people/megan-french" target="_self"> Dr Megan French of the UCL IRDR recently
completed her project on assessing water risk from mining on the Bolivian
Altiplano, working with Dr Stephen Edwards (UCL Hazard Centre and IRDR) and Professor
Karen Hudson-Edwards (Birkbeck, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences).
The project was co-funded by the IRDR and the Catholic Agency for Overseas
Development (CAFOD) and was undertaken in collaboration with CENDA (Centro de Comunicación y Desarrollo Andino) in Bolivia. A lot
was learned about the challenges of undertaking research to provide usable
results at community level. The biggest impact has been the use of the results
of the study to raise awareness of water quality and availability issues in the
Pazña and Poopó sub-basins at government and
community levels. The outcome is that the research has enabled CENDA to work with the Bolivian Vice
Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation to set up the Water Quality Monitoring
System for the Poopó and Pazña Rivers, with the participation of the Regional Government of Oruro, the municipal governments of Poopó
and Pazña, community water monitoring groups and local actors. A key achievement is the involvement of communities, as this gives legitimacy
to the work of communities and civil society organisations in Bolivia. For more
information, please contact Stephen Edwards at s.edwards@ucl.ac.uk.