Fonte: Turismo y Sociedad; Vol 26 (2020): Enero-Junio; 127-154
Palavras-chave:
Resumo: Through Decrees 0170 of April 15, 2016 and 0340 of August 16, 2017, the departmental government declares the beginning and the end of the public calamity due to the lack of water on the island of San Andrés (Colombia) during 15 months. The reduction of the water supply of 2016 entails social demonstrations against the departmental administration and generates conflicts in the tourism sector and the resident population in timely access to water, in the collective institutional imaginary as the culprit of the situation of the climatic phenomenon Southern Oscillation El Niño in that year (that brought with it a significant decrease in rainfall and thus in the supply of drinking water). This article explores additional factors that contributed to the decrease of water supply on the island, such as the incipient control of the aqueduct networks distribution leakage, the lack of demographic planning for an increasing sun and beach tourism and a possible discordance with the expected climate change in response to the decrease in rainfall (and, therefore, the supply of groundwater), the main source of water supply in San Andrés. In addition, this article presents an analysis, for a term of 10 years before a water crisis, of water supply in scenarios of climatic variability, after technical and operational losses in the aqueduct systems, against the water demand of tourists and residents of those same years and a projection to 2040; finding that if the current patterns of aquifer exploitation and management of the available supply continue, the same water problems will be experienced in the first half of each year, regardless of a climatic event enso El Niño.
