MANEJO ADAPTATIVO DEL TERRITORIO EN UNA CUENCA ALTOANDINA DESDE LA DIVERSIDAD CULTURAL Y ECOSISTÉMICA

Abstract

This approach, based on a High Andean basin, is a report of the research carried out with the social and institutional stakeholders of the Piedras subbasin and other sources of supply for the system that supplies the city of Popayán. It is part of the knowledge acquired during 25 years of work in these territories and the systematization of different deep processes in the period of the investigation, learning from the communities, sharing knowledge and exchanging with their knowledge, the construction of alternatives that have led to multiple reflexes, among them, that we can only adapt to changes as we prepare to sustain them. The research process developed shows how from the environmental sciences, the socioecosystem and its interactions are analyzed according to the characteristics and particularities of the subsystems that integrate it, the worldview of the actors on the territory, considering endogenous and scientific knowledge, the actions that allow agreement of principles, agreements, resolution of conflicts and their impact on the building of confidence that is reflected in the governance, which focuses on the management of ecosystem services and management processes for environmental services. This is influenced both by internal drivers, like social policies of its actors and external drivers, like the phenomena of variability, climate change, sociopolitical conflicts and State policies. From these interactions are generated the actions that allow approach to the forms, management and planning of the territory and shows the influence in the decision making to face disaster risk management, which are finally reflected in the adaptive management of the territory. This process considers a continuous monitoring that leads to the revision of indicators and adjustment of goals. The research was developed in the sub basin Las Piedras river, main source of supply of the Cauca department capital, Popayán, which is an integral part of the Cauca river basin, second of importance in the country; likewise, it was asked about other basins that contribute their environmental services to the water supply for the city of Popayán, in order to analyze practices that are transversal to the adaptation processes carried out with the Seed Custody Network of the upper Cauca basin. For the Piedras case, the historical landmarks that influenced the transformation of the territory are presented, as also the principles relevant to the concertation in the management that are associated to the indicators of response of the system, the analysis of the results of the flow behavior and its variation according to climatic phenomena. Additionally, a model is applied that allows analyzing the ecosystem response to environmental services in the face of future water demands over time. Likewise, the changes in the vegetation cover and its prospective are evaluated in a future time horizon, in the case of not proceeding with the adaptation processes. In order to corroborate the proposal of the approach, we detail the results of the influence of the adaptation practices according to the benefits, barriers and strategies that these represent in the socioecosystem; likewise, it is highlighted how through agreements, governance has been strengthened with a Peace and Coexistence pact between the actors, the construction of an agreement of wills for the management and management of a watershed, the risk management built with endogenous and scientific knowledge, to form a system of participatory early agroclimatic alerts SAATP and the proposal of tools to strengthen ecosystem and environmental services through a water fund, as a tool to improve management. Subsequently, the key analysis variables are combined to propose an integrative approach to the adaptive management of the territory, considering the cultural and ecosystem diversity. It can be concluded that strengthening the socio-ecosystem of a region allows responding to adaptation with sustainability and facing future challenges in the dynamics of territory transformation.