Isolation typology through accessibility measures considering rurality and armed conflict. A case study in Caldas, Colombia.

INTRODUCTION: Colombia's rural areas have suffered from government neglect, exacerbating their difficulties in relation to geographic isolation and meeting basic needs. These were some of the main reasons for guerrillas to initiate an armed conflict in the 1960s, trying to expand their forces and control through the rural and remote areas of the country. In this sense, it is necessary to construct new categories of rurality in Colombia, considering the armed conflict and the typology of isolation as variables that help policymakers and planners to make better decisions. METHODS: Based on 27 municipalities in the department of Caldas in Colombia, three accessibility measures were assessed to define isolated areas: geographical accessibility, access to health facilities and access to higher education. Health facilities were measured in three scenarios according to the flow of health care defined by the government. Higher education scenarios were defined according to Ministry of Education levels. Travel time was used as an attribute to calculate the isolation index of municipalities and was calculated using the Google Distance Matrix API using Python v3.7. As a measure of accessibility, a travel time limit was defined to delimit isolated areas. This variable was then added to the categories of rurality and armed conflict to produce the isolation typology by municipality. RESULTS: A strong correlation was found between all variables. Considering geographical accessibility, 20.3% of Caldas' population is isolated. The isolated population rises from 12.2% at the first level of health care to 43.2% of the population at the third level, and 39.5% of the inhabitants are far from universities. The municipalities highly affected by the armed conflict are more isolated in terms of travel time to health care and higher education facilities than those that were not affected. CONCLUSION: The isolation typology complements the Colombian rurality categories and can help governments make decisions about investments in road infrastructure, health, and education. In addition, some non-rural municipalities were found to be isolated, showing low accessibility to health and higher education, and the government should pay more attention to these areas. The government's neglect of municipalities highly affected by the armed conflict is shown by their continued isolation rates. The government should invest more and better in these areas taking into account this method of decision making. The typology of isolation could help the government to better plan care pathways for patients with complex health needs. In addition, it could help determine the investment for upgrading an existing hospital or building a new one, taking into account underserved areas. In terms of higher education, the isolation typology could help to understand where the community is underserved and initiate investment policies to improve access to higher education for its population.

Strategy for the analysis of lignocellulosic biomass to select a viable transformation route in the Colombian context.

Lignocellulosic biomass is widely available in the world. However, a consensus has yet to be established to evaluate the biomass valorization alternatives. The chemical composition is the primary technical limitation in selecting a transformation route to obtain value-added products. In this paper, the bagasse from non-centrifuged sugar (NCS) production and Pinus patula (PP) wood chips were analyzed in terms of complete chemical composition to establish their potential for selecting the transformation routes. A strategy to select the best route based on the chemical composition was applied and a feedstock criteria model was proposed. Schemes were obtained and compared using a bioprocess selection strategy proposed in previous works. As a result, the preliminary biorefinery schemes were finally defined. The assessment of schemes derived from the outlined strategy included technical, economic, environmental, and social analyses. The environmental evaluation was complemented with a geolocation assessment, revealing a 0.75-ton CO2-eq/yr contribution to the carbon footprint for local distribution. The sustainability index for the PP biorefinery and the bagasse from NCS production was analyzed, resulting in indices of 44.8 and 60.9, respectively. These values were primarily derived from the economic and environmental analyses of both processes.