Evaluación de la huella hídrica agropecuaria de la microcuenca río Suratá bajo en el municipio de Bucaramanga

Abstract

The objective of this study is to quantify the total water footprint of agricultural and livestock activities present in a portion of the Surata Bajo river micro-watershed, mainly following the methodological guidelines for the calculation of the water footprint. Three representative precipitation scenarios were proposed, called wet, normal, and dry year, and based on these, the different agricultural and livestock water footprints were calculated. Finally, the environmental sustainability of the water footprint indicator was evaluated, noting that the basin has the capacity to cover the needs of agricultural and livestock activities, thus establishing relevant information for decision making regarding water resource management. The results obtained show that the Agricultural Water Footprint was 993,765 m3 in the wet year, 2'381,692 m3 in the normal year and 1'428,930 m3 in the dry year. The Livestock Water Footprint was 3'398,961 m3 in the wet year, 2'363,593 m3 in the normal year and 2'094,504 m3 in the dry year. In the wet and normal years, the green component contributed the most to the generation of the agricultural water footprint, representing 76.5% and 70.3% respectively. However, in the dry year, the component that contributed the most was blue, with 47.1%. Likewise, the green component was the largest contributor to the livestock water footprint, highlighting that the cattle subsector was the largest contributor to the total livestock water footprint with an average of 84% for the three years.