Freshwater Management Discourses in the Northern Peruvian Andes: The Watershed-Scale Complexity for Integrating Mining, Rural, and Urban Stakeholders.

The Peruvian environmental action plan seeks headwaters protection as one of its integrated watershed management objectives. However, heterogeneous social and environmental conditions shape this freshwater management challenge at subnational scales. We have noticed different interpretations of this challenge. To map the debate, understand the diverse interpretations, and frame political choices, we conducted semi-structured interviews with institutional and non-institutional stakeholders for performing discourse analysis in an Andean watershed where mountaintop gold mining, midstream farmers, and the downstream Cajamarca city coexist. One discourse dominates the debate on protecting the freshwater supply and argues the importance of river impoundment, municipal storage capacity, and institutional leadership. The other two discourses revolve around protecting the mountain aquifer. The second discourse does so with a fatalistic view of headwaters protection and rural support. The third discourse partially shifts the debate towards the need for improving rural capacity building and (ground)water inventories. To understand evolutions in society, it is crucial to understand these three discourses, including the types of knowledge that actors present as legitimate, the attributed roles to all stakeholders, and the kinds of worldviews informing each discourse. The interaction among discourses could hinder integrated watershed management at worst or, at best, help inspire multi-stakeholder collaboration.

Identifying sustainable rehabilitation strategies for urban wastewater systems: a retrospective and interdisciplinary approach. Case study of Coronel Oviedo, Paraguay.

Many wastewater managers in developing countries struggle with the daily operation of urban wastewater systems. Technically well-designed wastewater collection and treatments are often degraded and/or not properly functioning. In this paper, a realistic rehabilitation strategy is developed for the urban wastewater system of Coronel Oviedo (Paraguay), in which the actual performance is unsatisfactory, as revealed by a detailed technical assessment, including water quantity and quality monitoring data. Understanding the history, starting from the initial planning and design process, allows to explain the current failing status of the urban wastewater system of Coronel Oviedo. The key information for the specific local rehabilitation strategy was extracted from an interdisciplinary assessment of shortcomings of urban wastewater systems in Paraguay which were revealed by a survey of all existing wastewater systems. Opting for a stepwise rehabilitation strategy allows the wastewater manager to gradually improve the performance of the wastewater system. Reusing the wastewater in agriculture and recovering the energy of methane gas are possible advantageous options for attracting external financial resources. Finally, the crucial role that the wastewater manager must play for sustainable wastewater management to become effective in practice is discussed, and recommendations are provided on how decision makers, researchers and consultants can contribute by anticipating the challenging circumstances inherent to developing countries.