UNITS 1 AND 2: TASK 3 - FINAL EVALUATION

WATER POLLUTION IN HUILA: AN AFFAIR OF ALL

PRESENTED BY

LIZETH LORENA PERDOMO BETANCOUR

CODE: 1075218122

PRESENTED TO
CAROLINA JAIME

SCHOOL OF HEALTH SCIENCES

OPEN AND DISTANCE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

HEALTH MANAGEMENT
MAY / 2020
 Basic Information

Some of the problems that arise in the field of "greening of geopolitics" are the scarcity of
natural resources, the environmental crisis and some aspects of the sovereignty of nations
along with the role of international organizations.

In this context, the concept of security is emerging, which turns out to be dynamic because it
cannot be characterized in a single term, so scourges that represent a threat, risk or
vulnerability to the different spheres of the international security agenda of the XXI century.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has adopted a security agenda that refers
to several factors as constituting the sources of human security and categorizes them into
seven areas: personal security, community security, political security, security economic,
food safety, health safety and environmental safety. The latter raises the protection of human
beings through a sustainable relationship with nature.

Below we will discuss three fundamental problems related to the environment and which
have acquired a geopolitical character due to their great global importance:

Geopolitics and climate change:

It is a subject that not only happens to science but also to geopolitics. Without better strategies
that converge in the multidisciplinary, the fight against the imbalance in ecosystems will not
be able to be fought, since the use and management of the geographic space that has been
determined by the human being from an environmental perspective becomes a clear political
problem.

Global warming is increasing the temperature, causing melting of the polar regions,
acidification of the oceans, rising sea levels and desertification of the soil. In other words,
this phenomenon is mainly affecting the geopolitics of natural resources because, in this way,
new sources of supply have to be sought.

Geopolitics and water pollution:

You cannot appropriate that river or that waterfall and negotiate them, selling or renting for
a company or a group of businessmen interested in exploiting them. In this way, we do not
have the right to make them the property of a single businessman or an oligopoly, since it is
part of an ecosystem, which is very diffuse, in common use by the people. This is what we
call "privatization". It means getting out of the hands of the government and giving them as
investment and profit to financially benefit the business sector.

Water for being a good that is part of an ecosystem, for being protected by the State, for
public use, could never be privatized. The fact of having an ecosystem implies the
interconnection and interdependence between all beings, the living and the inanimate. When
a being becomes ill, it generates consequences on various levels for all others. If the water is
polluted, degraded, mistreated, it will suffer human beings and other living beings. Water
can cure diseases, as it can also kill by becoming a vehicle for contamination such as polluted
streams and rivers. Therefore, society has rights over water, but it must also assume the
"duties" by sharing and caring for it.

Geopolitics and natural resources:

The definition of natural resources encompasses a set of components such as mineral

resources (minerals), biological resources (fauna and flora), environmental resources (air,
water and soil) and incidental resources (solar radiation, winds and ocean currents) that are
defined in that can be renewed - inexhaustible, such as sunlight and winds -, potentially
renewable - since they depend on the actions of man, such as water, soil and forests - and
non-renewable - that do not have the capacity to renew themselves, such as minerals, or that
renewal is very slow, such as oil.

From the moment natural resources become fields of attraction and gravitation for human
intervention for systematic exploration, they acquire a geopolitical and, at the same time,
strategic connotation. Therefore, a strategic natural resource is fundamental for the
functioning of the capitalist production and / or maintenance system of regional and global
hegemony that is difficult to replace and subject to some degree of supply risk (KLARE,
2012, p.166).
Of the aforementioned problems, the problem of water pollution and its relationship with
geopolitics, human health and human development will be discussed in depth below.
 Justification

I decided to choose this problem for several reasons, but the most important are related to the
seriousness of this situation in my region, the department of Huila, and in its capital, the city
of Neiva.

The contamination of water sources in Huila derives from multiple factors, among which
stand out the accelerated construction of urban projects that are not friendly to the
environment, the dumping of residual water in the tributaries, the inadequate disposal of
waste solid in its channels and the absence of a citizen culture for its adequate protection.

In addition to the discharge of domestic and industrial wastewater into the waters of the
basins and micro-basins of the Department, the sources are contaminated by rainwater and
garbage. But only in Neiva, the contamination is observed at a very high level.

Neiva's urban area is rich in important water resources. However, the multiple tributaries that
the city has have serious pollution problems. On its way through Neiva, the Magdalena River
stretches a 15-kilometer route through the communes Six, Four, Three, One and Nine.
Among the main contaminating agents of Magdalena are the Río del Oro, due to their
physical properties; the settlements along its channel due to the constant dumping of garbage
and the disposal of solid waste thrown mainly by some recyclers.

In the La Gaitana monument there are negative impacts on the river due to sewage
contamination, erosion, landscape modification to the anthropic intervention due to the
implementation of a retaining wall, which causes floods and deforestation. In addition, the
mouths of La Toma and Las Ceibas, the pig farms and the water collectors contribute to the
contamination.

La Toma's environmental problems are related to garbage dumps, families in flood zones,
inadequate disposal of solid waste, burning of garbage and dumps. Bad odor problems are
also evident. People who do not manage to remove the garbage on the stipulated day throw
it into the ravine. The creek shows a bad appearance due to garbage and other pollutants
generated by activities such as carpentry
 Relationships cause - effect of the problematic situation
Mortality: Unfortunately, dirty water has an even higher
associated risk. According to the WHO, diarrheal diseases
Ecosystems: The United Nations Environment
cause 1.5 million deaths annually. Of these, more than
Program (UNEP), in its report Towards a Pollution-
840,000 have their cause in the lack of safe water together
Free Planet, alerts on the effects of spoiled fresh water
EFFECTS
with insufficient hygiene and sanitation.
on the environment, since it impacts on habitats
causing the loss of aquatic biodiversity and facilitates Without water, hygiene and sanitation, health is put at risk.
the flowering of harmful algae or eutrophication. 40% of deaths in minors are caused by the consumption of
water in poor condition or by lack of hygiene in an
emergency.
Malnutrition: In the report Improving Nutrition Outcomes with Better Water,
Sanitation and Hygiene prepared by WHO, UNICEF and the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID), it is indicated that malnutrition is related
to insufficient diet and infectious diseases, since there is a correlation between Diseases: The consumption of dirty water or its use for
food, health and care. hygiene and sanitation is linked to multiple ailments. The
World Health Organization talks about diarrhea, cholera,
In this way, a healthy diet will cover nutritional needs, but an adequate hepatitis A, dysentery, polio and typhoid fever, among
environment is also necessary, with health services, sanitation and appropriate others.
hygienic practices, and for all this, it is essential to have safe water.

WATER POLLUTION
Use of pesticides in agricultura: The vast majority of agricultural Increased temperatures: When
processes of our time use fertilizers and chemicals for cultivation an ecosystem suffers from
and food production. Well, these products are filtered through temperatures above the usual ones,
underground channels that, in most cases, end up in the water the water sources decrease their
networks that we use for our consumption. This water will hardly amount of oxygen, which causes
CAUSES

be treated to return it to the channels suitable for consumption. the water to alter its composition.

Deforestation: Excessive cutting of Oil spills: Finally, we cannot forget a practice

Industrial waste: Industry is one of the main
factors that cause water pollution.
Unfortunately, thousands of companies are still
unaware of the proper use to be made of this
resource and dump quantities of polluting
products derived from their industrial
processes. Rivers and channels are the most
affected by these bad practices.
trees contributes to the drying up of
rivers, lakes and other water sources. In
addition to this, the cutting of forests
does not in all cases include the removal
of the roots of the trees that are on the
banks of the rivers, which causes the
appearance of sediments and bacteria
under the ground and the consequent
contamination of this precious resource.
that has traditionally caused water pollution in
various parts of the planet: oil spills and their
derivatives. These discharges are due to the
poor transportation of oil and the filtration of
products such as gasoline, which is generally
stored in underground tanks; in many cases,
the tanks are leaking and the substance seeps
into the bodies around them, including sources
of water suitable for human consumption.
 Definition of problem solution alternatives

This problem is important to understand and intervener to learn from the Model of Sustainable Human
Development, which is a process of progressive change in the quality of life of the human being,
which places it as the center and primary subject of development, through economic growth with
equity social, the transformation of production methods and consumption patterns that are sustained
by the ecological balance and life support of the region.

Sustainable Human Development proposes some principles, however for the proposal of alternative
solutions, we will essentially consider the following:

Self-management and associativity

The strategy for sustainable local development includes individual and community appropriation of
common problems, the creation of organizations for participation and consultation (agreement
between different actors assuming shared responsibilities).

Development and agroecology

There can be no development on a local human scale in the midst of predatory agricultural, social and
economic systems or of fundamental natural resources in processes of extinction. The community
must be very clear about what is positive and what is negative for the natural environment. Therefore,
technologies that adjust to the characteristics of each ecosystem must be promoted, in such a way that
they guarantee the sustainability of natural resources for the future.

Considering then these two foundations or principles of Sustainable Human Development, the
following alternative solutions are proposed for the problem of water pollution in the department of
Huila and especially in its capital Neiva:

Intra-sectoral alternatives: The environmental authority (CAM) will be responsible

- Strengthening of the processes of control and monitoring of the state of water resources in
the department.
- Strengthening of the processes for granting environmental licenses to projects that
compromise water sources.
 - Strengthening of pedagogical processes for the community on the rational use of water and
its care.

Inter-sectoral alternatives: The different social sectors of the department will be responsible
(educational sector, civil authorities and public forces, commerce sector, construction and industry
sectors, health sector, religious sector, civil and community society, etc.)

- Strengthening of programs and intersectoral campaigns for comprehensive environmental

education
- Carrying out of intersectoral pedagogical sessions of permanent cleaning in the rounds of
water sources.
- Creation of intersectoral committees for ecological and environmental oversight.

In the following section, the objectives, goals and resources for each of the proposed alternatives will
be explored.
 Description and development of the intra-sectorial and inter-sectoral alternative

Alternative Objectives Program Lines Goals Resources Needed

Program
Strengthening of Maintain permanent - Prevention Strengthened - Technicians
the processes of control and - Control institutional response - Humans
control and monitoring of the - Mitigation capacity to situations - Monetary
The environmental authority (CAM) will be responsible

monitoring of the levels of that threaten water

state of water contamination of sources in the
resources in the water sources in the department.
department. department.
Intra-sectoral alternatives:

Strengthening of Prevent more - Prevention Decrease in the - Technicians

the processes for efficiently the - Control contamination of - Humans
granting contamination of - Mitigation water sources by the - Monetary
environmental water sources by - Legal and / or productive projects - Legal
licenses to projects industrial or Regulatory bordering the - Administrative
that compromise commercial projects. riverbanks.
water sources.

Strengthening of Permanently educate - Educational Communities much - Technicians

pedagogical the communities - Prevention more aware and - Humans
processes for the bordering the - Control educated about the - Pedagogical
community on the riverbanks. - Mitigation rational use of water - Monetary
rational use of - Administrative
water and its care.
(educational sector, civil authorities and public forces, commerce
The different social sectors of the department will be responsible Strengthening of Sensitize all Huilense - Educational A society much more - Technicians

sector, construction and industry sectors, health sector, religious

programs and society about the - Prevention sensitized and jointly - Humans
intersectoral importance of water - Control committed to the - Pedagogical
campaigns for resources. - Mitigation environment. - Monetary
comprehensive - Administrative
sector, civil and community society, etc.)
environmental
education
Inter-sectoral alternatives:

Carrying out of Mitigate damage - Educational Much cleaner and - Technicians

intersectoral already caused on - Control decontaminated - Humans
pedagogical riverbanks. - Mitigation riverbanks. - Pedagogical
sessions of - Monetary
permanent cleaning - Administrative
in the rounds of
water sources.

Creation of Strengthen social - Prevention A much more - Technicians

intersectoral control over the - Control participatory and - Humans
committees for protection of water - Mitigation empowered society - Pedagogical
ecological and sources. - Legal and / or on the problem of - Monetary
environmental Regulatory water pollution. - Administrative
oversight.
 Conclusions

- The environment is nowadays a matter of world interest and that is why it is on the
agendas of current geopolitics, however the accelerated capitalist movement in the
world powers that of course influences the underdeveloped countries, has permeated
the consciences of the rulers , who do not want to commit to sustainable development.
- I believe that there is not yet enough political awareness in the world to understand
the true implications of environmental deterioration on human health and well-being,
and therefore, no real strategies have been generated to resignify this relationship
between man and nature.
- Of the proposed alternatives, it is necessary to conclude that although intrasectoral
actions, that is, they only commit the environmental authority, are very important,
from sustainable human development, intersectoral actions should be strengthened,
since it is based on them that the empowerment of the communities is generated in
the face of the search for alternative solutions.
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