Urban Planning, Partnerships and Water access

“Agua va!” (Water falling!)

A couple of months ago I was reading a book about the story of Madrid, and I discovered a tremendously shocking fact: Back in the 17^th Century, the city of Madrid, recently turned into the capital of Spain by Philippe II, lacked access to household water and sanitation.

A common phrase that a typical pedestrian from Madrid would listen was “Water falling!”, meaning that someone was throwing urine or excrement out the window into the streets. This was such a problem, that there are literary references about the pestilence of the city by famous writers such as Quevedo or Gongora.

Fortunately, King Charles III asked Marques de Esquilache to elaborate a Plan for paving, drainage, lightning and street cleaning and to establish a rigid municipal ordinance to forbid throwing garbage and human disposals out the window. He is considered to be “the first Mayor of Madrid”.

Today, the city of Madrid, and every other city of Spain, have 100% access to water and sanitation in the household.

Nowadays, many centuries after, there are many cities in the world where people don’t have access to these basic services: According to UN Habitat, 1.1 billion people don’t have access to water and 2.6 billion don’t have access to toilets.

Personal Elaboration

Lima: no Plan, no Access

In Lima (Peru), where I come from out of the 8.6 million people, 1.5 million still lack access to water and sanitation.

During the 20^th Century, after World War II, the city received a large number of migrants: Lima´s population went from 0,6 million in 1940, to 1,9 million in 1960, 4,8 million in 1980, 7,2 million in 1990 and 8,2 million in 2010, more than 30% of the total population of the country.

But, did this expansion occur under any kind of urban planning? The answer is no. The city expansion was mainly through illegal “barriadas” or slums, which now are home to more than 3 million people.

Water scarcity

Lima has only 2.2% of the water resources of the country, and has to provide drinking water to a third of the countries’ population.

After el Cairo, Lima is the second largest city located in a desert, and it mostly depends on the water of the Rimac River (75%)[1], which compared to the Nilo River, only carries 1% of water. Not only population, households and industry depend on the Rimac flow, but also the energy sector, since 59% of the electricity is hydroelectric.

Since the city has grown without any planning, the access of water for the city is now threatened. One of the main threats has been the expansion of unplanned urbanization which has made the Rimac River an urbanized river through 95% of its natural path. The newly impermeable surfaces are a huge threat to the natural underground aquifer.

Solution: Plan and Partner

An interesting solution to the problem of water is to establish partnerships between municipalities, NGOs, and especially large private industrial companies, which are very interested and sensitive about water scarcity, and want to ensure the availability of the resource in the future in order to still have a business to run in the coming years.

In the case of Lima, there is an interesting experience to highlight in the district of Ate, which includes the participation of the Municipality, WWF, GIZ and Backus, the largest beer company that has its bigger production plant in Ate.

The objective of this multi stakeholder Partnership is to recover old irrigation canals, and secondary connection to parks, in order to irrigate the parks with cheaper water[2] and contribute to the recharge of the aquifer in areas that are now impermeable and full of trash. Project would benefits 15 hectares, of land and 15 parks.

The Project has finalized recently and it is being evaluated, but it will definitely have a large impact and it can be a replicable solution to warrantee the recharge of the aquifer and to reduce the risk and threat of urbanization and impermeability.

In places where Urban Planning haven’t been done since the beginning and urbanization threatens the river flow, the aquifer and the access to water, this can be a very interesting a posteriori solution to the problem. This pilot project can become a model for most of developing countries which suffer from similar issues.

Personal Elaboration

[1] Rivers Chillon (13%) and Lurin (12%) also provide Lima with water, but mainly for agriculture.

[2] Water from SEDAPAL connections: €1.30/m3.  Water from Canals: €0.02/m3.  Water from tunker truck: €2.3/m3.

References:

• Blanco Vila, Luis. Madrid al Paso: Un paseo cultural. Palas Atenea Ediciones. 1992. 222 pg.
• WWF Peru. A Fragile cycle: Water, Energy and Population in Lima. 2014. 68 pg.
• Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Implementation of Water Futures Partnership. 2012. 24 pg.
• UN Habitat, Slum upgrading facility (SUF). Local Finance Facilities: what they are, why they are important, and how they work. 2008. 20 pg.
• UN Habitat, Slum upgrading facility (SUF). Guarantees for slum upgrading: Lessons on how to use guarantees to address risk and access commercial loans for slum upgrading.
• Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas (INEI). Perú: Estimaciones y Proyecciones de Población Total, por Años Calendario y Edades Simples, 1950-2050. 2009. 147 pg.
• Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas (INEI). Estado de la Población Peruana 2014. 2014. 47 pg.

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