CAPTAÇÃO E MANEJO DE ÁGUA DE CHUVA PARA SUSTENTABILIDADE DE ÁREAS RURAIS E URBANAS – TECNOLOGIAS E CONSTRUÇÃO DA CIDADANIA TERESINA, PI, DE 11 A 14 DE JULHO DE 2005

Water Forever Program Executive Summary Raúl Hernández Garciadiego Gisela Herrerías Guerra 1 Since 1980, Alternativas y Procesos de Participación Social, A.C. has guided and promoted a successful regional development process in southern Mexico. Alternativas is a non-governmental organization (NGO) located in southern Mexico that specializes in regional development projects including water projects and the development of agriculture for arid regions at the village level with a watershed territorial perspective. In 1980, ALTERNATIVAS launched a rural development process targeted at low income farmers in the Mixteca Region and based in Tehuacán, in the state of Puebla in Mexico. The Mixteca is considered to be the poorest and one of the driest regions in Mexico. The program strategy employed an educational approach aimed at generating sustainable self-help development processes through promotional and organizational activity involving poor families and communities. The objective was not to try to solve the water problems of local residents, but rather to help organize the people, train them, and give them basic support so they could solve their water problems themselves. From the beginning it was clear that the main problem facing the Region’s residents is a lack of water. While the Mixteca Region is particularly affected by this problem, water

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Alternativas y Procesos de Participación Social A.C. , Tehuacán, Puebla, México. Email: [email protected]

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availability throughout most of Mexico – and for that matter worldwide – is becoming one of the main environmental problems facing humankind.

It has become clear that water development in this region requires an integrated approach involving educational activities that promote villagers’ participation in sound natural resources management in their watersheds: rain water, aquifers, vegetation, soils, and animals. Consciousness of the close relationship between poverty and degradation of environment and the consequent natural resources depletion is increasing worldwide.

In order to raise the

level of life of the indigenous people, water development must be linked to improvements in agricultural practices. In order to be maintained over the longer term, these improvements must be part of a broad-based development effort aimed at improving the health, education, income, sanitation and nutrition of the local population. The region’s agricultural practices impinge heavily on the quality of its watersheds. The main goal of the Water Forever Program is to help low-income people living in the rural areas of southern Mexico by: 5º Simpósio Brasileiro de Captação e Manejo de Água de Chuva, Teresina, PI, 11-14/07/2005

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·Improving the availability of potable water;

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·Constructing small-scale irrigation facilities for agriculture;

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·Raising the level of sanitation in the region’s villages;

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·And conserving fragile soils and improving agricultural productivity (and thus raising rural household incomes) through the use of better, more appropriate agricultural production practices.

The Program emphasizes participatory and educational approaches to development, which will both strengthen human resources in the region and reduce pressure on the young to migrate by enhancing local living conditions and economic opportunities. The major components of the Program involve: I) the study of watersheds; II) the promotion of villages participation; III) the identification and implementation of appropriate technologies for enhancing the availability of potable water and small irrigation, and; IV) the education of people in safe and sustainable use of water.

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The integrated watershed management approach includes the implementation of technologies for water harvesting, extraction, conveyance, storage, purification, and delivery, based on indigenous knowledge combined with modern technologies. Access to clean water, free of water-transmitted diseases, will substantially benefit the health of rural populations. Small irrigation schemes improve agricultural productivity and contribute to sustainable increases in the incomes of the region’s rural poor. In collaboration with local farmers, the efficient use of water in small irrigation is enhanced in order to increase food security and the availability of water for domestic use as potable water. The objective here is to increase the agricultural productivity of the region’s poor farmers, protect soil and water resources by regenerating watershed ecology, and enhance the sustainability of the water development initiatives by reducing the impact of agriculture on watersheds and recharging the aquifer at a

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faster rate. The establishment and maintenance of biodigesters and latrines for improved sanitation are improving community health. The Program’s success has increased the interest of many other potential participants such as municipal, state and federal government, some of whom have joined the program.

“Water as a Scarce Resource Research” In 1985-86, a multidisciplinary research team leaded by Raul Hernández Garciadiego completed a comprehensive project that assessed the region's huge water problem and the difficulties in finding immediate solutions. Entitled “Water as a Scarce Resource,” the Program analyzed the problem from an historical perspective – from the ancient origins of Middle American agriculture up to the present. This research succeeded in showing the relationship between three fundamental components of the problem: •

·Regional ecology;

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·The technology used in each historical period; and

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·A social organization that conformed to each technology in different ecological micro-regions during each historical stage.

This research provided valuable information. Because of the scarcity and importance of water, residents of the Mixteca Region developed, adapted, and adopted during each historical period a wide variety of technologies to obtain and use water. More than any other factor, the struggle for water is the predominant underlying theme in regional history, and in order to understand the appropriateness of possible techniques for developing water supplies in the future, one must first understand the history of the region. Each historical period has generated new technologies and new forms of social organization, producing different socio-technological systems, many of which coexist today in a complex macro-system that can be termed a “hidric society.” Nevertheless, instead of getting better, the Region’s water problems are getting worse. There are three main reasons for this situation: •

·Population growth;

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·Inadequate management of natural resources in the region; and

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·Unequal access to available water, with access concentrated among few people and groups in a struggle between urban and rural communities, and also between economic groups of differing strength within each sector.

In the poor rural villages, women suffer more from the scarcity of water because in most cases they still have the responsibility of collecting and bringing enough water to meet the family's needs for drinking, cooking, washing and bathing. Men also suffer from water scarcity, but in different ways. In the dry season when the rains are delayed and the fields dry out, leaving the family without food, the men often have to migrate temporarily in search of income in some large city in Mexico or in the United States. During the field study in the pilot village of Atzingo, the daily average availability of water was measured at 50 liters (13.2 US gallons) per family, equivalent to less than 8 liters per person, only 5% of the 150 liters (39.6 gallons) established by the World Health Organization to prevent basic health problems.

These 8 liters are nothing compared with the average

consumption of 328 liters per person in Mexico or the 1,000 liters average consumption of the richest sector in the country’s national capital city. During the dry season, every two days women have to spend 7 hours to fetch this small amount of water. The problem is not only to get enough potable water to meet people’s needs, but to find sustainable technologies that will preserve aquifers and also provide access to water on an equitable basis for the different sectors of the population. The continuing decline of the water table over time suggests a potentially catastrophic problem in the near future. Meanwhile, millions of cubic meters of rain water are lost each year, running off through gullies and canyons, benefiting nobody and causing serious damage and erosion as it flows downstream. Because of these realities, the design of the program for developing aquifers incorporates three important conditions: •

·Sound knowledge and understanding of regional ecology;

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·Understanding of cultural and social organizational patterns;

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·Utilization of appropriate technology for each ecological site and micro-region.

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Root Causes of the Water Problem in Mixteca For many years, farmers have cut down forests and opened steep land to agriculture, altering the balance of nature. They have done this in order to meet their families’ needs for housing, fuel, and farmland and to supplement their income by selling firewood. This deforestation for subsistence, done by the poor farmers living up in the mountains, is worsened by the immoderate commercial timber harvesting done by private sawmills, companies that often do not fulfill their legal obligations for reforestation. Overgrazing has hindered the natural revegetation process, because young plants are devoured by flocks of domesticated animals. The combined action of deforestation and overgrazing have made the natural vegetative cover on hills and mountains disappear. Removal of this protective cover reduces water infiltration to recharge aquifers. The water runs down the steep slopes, eroding and washing away fertile soil, leaving only bare rock. This erosion process cuts gullies where forests were found before. According to topography, many small gullies join together and form bigger gullies and canyons, increasing the

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strength and speed of the runoff, and thus increasing erosion downstream. The outcome is large canyons with many smaller tributary gullies. The general scarcity of water makes the potential benefit from this runoff water, using watering holes or dams, very attractive. But such dams have to be built to standards that will withstand the strength of the torrent, and thus require a large investment that is beyond the reach of poor farmers. Moreover, such dams would have a very short life, because of the great amount of silt that comes with the flow, filling them in relatively short time. A problem of large dam technology is that it focuses the problem on only one resource – water – instead of focusing on overall management of the resource base. Downstream, where the alluvial valleys are, many wells are drilled to obtain water for irrigated agriculture. The combined effect of gully erosion up in the hills and over-extracting water in the valleys produces a drop in the water table. The volume of water extracted has increased and natural recharge has been reduced. The resulting decline of the water table threatens the seeping galleries system that depends on the shallow aquifers.

The Proposed Solution: Watershed Regeneration Fortunately, farmers in this region have not lost their vast traditional knowledge and culture related to water, which has facilitated the adoption of modern appropriate ecological technologies. After many studies it is clear that the most effective solution is a watershed regeneration process. Watershed regeneration proposes an integrated approach to the management of natural resources, aiming for a solution to the problem in the very place where it originates, i.e., correcting the root causes of the water problem and not just mitigating the visible effects. To regenerate watersheds several treatments are being used, working in mountains, hills, gullies and valleys, utilizing appropriate technologies to reach the desired results. Some of the work is been done on a volunteer basis by the individual farmers who will benefit most from specific improvements, while other work comprises the making of a group commitment on the part of all villagers for the common welfare of the community. The watershed regeneration process is exactly the opposite of the deforestation process described above. There are several different technologies suitable for ecological regeneration 5º Simpósio Brasileiro de Captação e Manejo de Água de Chuva, Teresina, PI, 11-14/07/2005

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while providing potable and irrigation water to rural families. In each region the method used is the one most suitable to the problems of that zone. Instead of starting with construction of a large dam at the end of a gully to stop the water flow, the proposed solutions start up in the mountains where rain water begins to flow down, producing small streams.

Structures are first constructed up in the mountains and hills, then down through the gullies, and ending in the flat valleys. According to their specific purpose, these structures are designed to catch water, recharge aquifers, and convey water to fields, dams or villages for irrigation, animal watering, or human consumption once it has been made potable. What follows is a description of the various waterworks that are being built by the Water Forever Program.

Harvesting Rain Water in the Mountains On the steep slopes found in the mountains, watershed regeneration is being achieved using ditches and trenches, harvesting rings, and reforestation. The objectives of these efforts are to: •

·Favor soil formation by means of reforestation;

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·Diminish erosion by slowing the flow of water;

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·Increase infiltration to recharge aquifers;

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·Conduct captured water to areas where it is needed.

Harvesting Rain Water in the Hills On hills with gentler slopes than found in the mountains, reforestation is pursued and rain water harvesting structures are built, such as earth mounds, terraces, and water holes for animal watering and small-scale irrigation.

Harvesting Rain Water from Gullies and Ravines Gullies and ravines have formed where running water has found weaker soil that is easily eroded. Gully regeneration is being accomplished by building systems composed of seeping dams along the watercourse, and earthen mounds following the contour line of the adjacent fields. The tributary of each gully that supplies the largest amount of water is the first selected, and this tributary is followed upstream to detect the many places where water flow begins, in order to dam each one.

The Healing Effect of These Interventions Once a dam upstream is finished, the next site downstream is selected. There a similar dam is then built, thus stopping the water at each level where appropriate conditions are found. According to the slope of the water bed, many dams may be built before reaching the main stream. Slowing the water by temporarily impounding it in each dam site has the following effects: ·

Soil brought by the runoff will settle upstream in the watercourse, forming

excellent agricultural fields, instead of being washed downstream; ·

A portion of the impounded water slowly filters downstream, and another portion

infiltrates underground, recharging the aquifer. Over time, these two phenomena produce a double beneficial effect:

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Soil accumulates in the watercourse, which heals the gully and reduces the tension

in lateral walls. This allows the gully to be gradually covered by natural vegetation, as a result of increased moisture in the soil. ·

The sand and soil that is retained works as a sponge that captures a great amount

of water and then delivers it slowly through the seeping dam, producing a small water flow that will last several days or weeks, becoming a semi-permanent stream downstream, instead of an unproductive and dangerous flash flood. In a long watershed, where many dams and terraces can be built, the resulting water flow can even become permanent, and the amount of available water will increase as the regeneration process upstream continues. When enough soil is built up along the regenerated watercourse, fruit trees and native perennial plants are planted. In addition to producing resources for the people, they will help the dams in retaining soil, and will produce shade, reducing water evaporation.

Water Extraction Options All along the system and according to needs and opportunities at each particular site, shallow wells can be dug beside the river bed, and when appropriate conditions can be found deep wells may be drilled to tap deeper aquifers. Seeping galleries are dug below the water bed, to obtain water even in the dry season, water that was infiltrated and stored by the dam complex upstream. Also horizontal wells can be drilled to obtain water from the mountains by means of gravity. Water obtained in these ways is used for human consumption, or in watering troughs, or for irrigating agricultural fields – or a combination of all three, which is what most poor farm families really need.

Water Conveyance Options As access to water is assured, appropriate technologies are used to raise, convey, store and optimize its use, bringing benefits to families throughout the region by means of sustainable systems. “Quiet water” is be conveyed to storage sites using several methods. Some of these entail loss via infiltration and evaporation, while others are more efficient in preserving water. The choice of conveyance methods depends on the scarcity or relative abundance of water, and also on available resources to invest in conveyance features in each case. 5º Simpósio Brasileiro de Captação e Manejo de Água de Chuva, Teresina, PI, 11-14/07/2005

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Water Storage Options Once water has reached the sites where it will be stored, there are several storage methods to choose from. These include impoundment by means of contour earth mounds (creating percolation fields), watering holes, earthen dikes (jagüeyes), earthen dams, rock dams and impermeable deposits. Selection is made according to the amount of water to be stored, topography and soil type, investment required, scarcity of water, and so forth.

Drawing Water from Storage Once stored, water can be extracted in several ways: direct faucets; storage tanks tapped with faucets pipes that feed into various water distribution networks; watering troughs for animals; and shallow and deep wells drilled after the watershed regeneration works.

Elevating Water It is usually necessary to raise water from ground level to elevated sites from which it can be distributed through the public networks. Several technologies, using different types of energy, may be used: alternative sources of energy, for example, hydraulic rams, windmills, solar pumps and manual pumps. These alternatives are appropriates for isolated villages. Electric or diesel pumps although this method is relatively expensive and many poor families cannot afford the payment of fuel or electricity.

Potability Programs In each village, a potable water committee that assumes responsibility for the quality of public water is appointed and trained. Public water can be contaminated by several factors throughout the process of conveyance, and quality problems can arise if potability procedures are neglected. It is therefore very important to create a strong community awareness - through educational activities and materials - of potability standards.

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Potability at the Domestic Level Notwithstanding the efforts made to deliver potable water through the public network, in order to guarantee family health, educational activities are needed to train villagers in potability measures at the domestic level. In many cases, rural families will not have access to water from the public system, so they have to take ensure the potability of the water they use at home. To facilitate domestic water potability, the Water Forever Program offers filters, pipes, faucets, tanks, solar and thermo-syphonic stoves, water distillers, and so forth to families in the target communities – at cost, making credit available as needed. Domestic potability measures include filtering, boiling, and sometimes distilling. Re-using water in the home It is important to educate people to re-use water, and establish low cost systems to do this at the domestic level. In villages where sewer systems exist, water re-use at the home level is minimal. Sewers collect small amounts of dirty water from each home, producing a large collective flow of contaminated water. This becomes a public health problem requiring treatment and final disposal. At the domestic level, water is treated by several complementary techniques. But the biodigester is the most interesting method that creates an anaerobic environment for the decomposition of human waste, killing all pathogens to obtain water free from parasites and bacteria. Biodigester-treated water is then passed through a filtering garden, built with sand, gravel, stone, and earth, in which vegetables can be safely planted. In this way, the garden will be permanently irrigated and fertilized.

Conclusions on appropriate technologies Combining the various appropriate technologies described above – ecological regeneration, water harvesting and extracting, storage, conveyance, potability and efficient use and recycling of water – provide families with enough potable, clean and treated water to meet needs for drinking, cooking, washing, livestock watering, and irrigation. This integrated system of watershed regeneration offers other additional benefits: ·

Being labor intensive, it requires strong community participation.

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Resources invested in construction will create jobs, thus reducing the need for

seasonal migration toward Mexican cities and to the US. ·

This approach, being the sum of many small water development activities instead

of one large undertaking, allows for gradual construction, according to the availability of money and hand labor – and it begins producing benefits from the very first structure erected upstream.

For these reasons, this integrated approach does not imply a heavy dependency of the villagers on outside sources for construction and maintenance. Local communities can implement development projects according to their own capacity to do so, buffering them against shortfalls in external support or delays in needed funding. This kind of environmentally sound water system brings benefits to the people that build and use them, but at the same time will be bringing longlasting benefits to the entire region by means of aquifer recharge. Many of the improvements are constructed in the mountains that surround the alluvial valleys, helping to recharge aquifers and maintain water tables. Combined with semi-arid reforestation and appropriate use of available water, this integrated systems approach to water development will resolve the Region’s current and future water problems. What is being accomplished under the Water Forever Program is not an entirely new technological approach, strange to the local cultures, but rather an extension and improvement of ancient technologies. There exists an important cultural background for, and awareness of, the kind of dams, watering holes, terraces, and canals being proposed. The same or similar structures were part of the Region’s pre-Hispanic waterworks, some of which are still in use today. The use of modern techniques is enhancing the rich indigenous tradition of protecting soil and water resources. Far from disrupting the environment, the proposed system interventions will help restore it to its ancient state, and allow for a more sustainable use of natural resources.

Educational Activities A very important aspect of the Water Forever Program is its educational approach, with the goals of building awareness as to the importance of water conservation and its relationship with soil and plants, and of changing people’s attitudes towards its more responsible use. Also, Alternativas has put together activities with which to teach basic hygiene and nutrition concepts 5º Simpósio Brasileiro de Captação e Manejo de Água de Chuva, Teresina, PI, 11-14/07/2005

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among the population as a way to improve living conditions. The educational activities are sector-based watershed workshops, executive workshops, committee meetings, nutrition and health courses and visits to the new facilities of Alternativas’ “Water Museum” located inside the also new Middle American Center for Water and Agriculture. The first three categories of activities are focused on strengthening the execution of soil and water conservation projects. In them, various sectors from the villages -- municipal authorities, communal landowners, and the inhabitants in general -- participate together in order to

collectively reflect on regional issues and to seek solutions based on the following themes: water, soil and vegetation, the tributary watershed as a concept that unifies communities which share natural resources, contamination, availability and quality of water, potability, watershed restoration for groundwater recharge and the role of Alternativas as a development institution. The Tributary Watershed workshops are a way to bring together the greatest number of communities from the same watershed through their representatives. A general presentation is offered of the themes mentioned above and the Water Forever Program is presented as an alternative solution to water availability problems.

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In the Executive Workshops, the same themes are discussed in relation to one community in particular, and the participants make concrete proposals for carrying out projects. Then, through meetings with local committees, administrative processes are dealt with (signing of agreements, project follow-up until conclusion). Discussions in these meetings focus on organizational aspects, management and information related to projects. Thus, an important task is carried out before, during, and after a project by staying in continuous contact with participant beneficiaries. Those who participate in the committees have communicated how important it is for them to be responsible for projects that not only benefit their village, but also their watershed. A very important aspect of the workshops is the participation of women. They are often the ones who are responsible for providing water to the home, so their active participation in these meetings is encouraged.

Values Among the values that guide Alternativas’ social work and constitute the axes of its labors the following stand out: • Social justice. • Personal commitment to the least favoured villages and families. • Integrated, interdisciplinary work. • Efficient resource management. • Strengthening local capacities and training participants. Methodological contributions All along the process, certain basic guiding principles have been conserved: •

Insertion of the team of promoters in the region.

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Adopt an anthropocentric approach that leads to the elaboration of an educational focus as the methodological axis of social promotion.

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Assuming the perspective of disadvantaged groups.

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Analyzing our performance from a gender perspective.

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Identifying water as the “axis” problem.

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Understanding territory as a series of tributary watersheds.

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Progressive enrichment of nature’s potential.

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Interdisciplinary teamwork designed to achieve concrete successes for people by resolving the problems that most hinder their development.

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Ongoing educational interaction.

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Continuous realization of activities related to applied research.

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Elaboration of suitable technologies as a permanent, integral activity in all developmental processes.

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Incorporating local participants as members of the development promotion team.

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The creation of specialized thematic Operating Units.

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Management of Operating Units as autonomous cost-control centers.

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Setting up productive social enterprises that generate jobs and income for the families.

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Integrating social enterprises in a fertile cooperative milieu.

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The development of instruments for management and entrepreneurial training.

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Creation and adaptation of instruments that assure adequate development financing.

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Exploration and definition of equitable models for generating and sharing value.

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Political neutrality.

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The systematization of experience as continuous practice.

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Activating increasing synergies

The task of regenerating watersheds synthesizes this entire mode of operation: beginning with the identification of water scarcity as the “axis” problem and ongoing research done with the goal of resolving it. This research includes gaining an integral understanding of the natural environment, the forms of social organization, and the technologies that have been utilized over the course of the region’s history. It was as a result of this research that the approach based on regenerating tributary watersheds emerged and matured as a concept that brings cultural space together with the physical space in which the life of the towns is played out. It is in this milieu that the wide range of regeneration technologies available and the processes of social intervention that are analyzed during the promotion process are integrated to allow participants to comprehend their adaptation and decide freely concerning their realization. At the same time, regional studies are carried out as a means of determining, in a regional perspective, 5º Simpósio Brasileiro de Captação e Manejo de Água de Chuva, Teresina, PI, 11-14/07/2005

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the exact actions to be undertaken and the range of specific work programs designed to guide the execution of such actions.

Outcomes · Alternativas has an interdisciplinary team with a strong service commitment composed by 174 full time persons. · Due to the nature of the process of watershed restoration and to the educational approach of the program that promotes the active participation of the people in the waterworks, there are now thousands of villagers already trained to be able to undertake these kinds of activities.

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· Since 1988, the Water Forever Program has served a total of 164 villages located in 33 tributary watersheds covering 8,000 square kilometers. · The Water Forever Program has served a total of 176 thousand inhabitants of the Mixteca region up to December 2004. · 1,423 waterworks have been carried out, implementing 34 types of technologies. . More than US 12 million dollars have been invested in this needy region in the past twelve years. As a product these watershed regeneration activities Alternativas has had a tremendous impact by transforming dry ravines into watercourses that flow permanently throughout the year, thus bringing numerous benefits to the families that live and produce along their courses. ·The Water Forever Program has been honored with many outstanding national and international awards.

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