Part 5: The Future of Our Work
Talking about the future of our work means talking about the future of water in the Upper Rio Laja Watershed for sure - but also beyond. Integrated water management around the world is becoming increasingly essential since water supplies are getting considerably degraded by human activities. In our region in particular, we are experiencing an unprecedented level of water extraction from our aquifer, creating very serious environmental, social, and health issues. This over-extraction leaves the many rural and urban communities no option but to consume water extracted from ever-increasing depths that are highly contaminated with arsenic and fluoride. These are two extremely toxic chemicals responsible for a host of impacts on human health such as skin disease, dental and skeletal fluorosis (teeth get permanently stained and bones become fragile and deformed), cognitive and learning impairments in children, chronic kidney disease, and different types of cancers. However, these notoriously-difficult-to-remove contaminants are not limited to our region. According to a recent study by Pawan Kumar Jha and Piyush Tripathi, two highly notable water scientists:
“Groundwater pollution by arsenic and fluoride is emerging as the prime concern of the world due to its highly toxic nature, which results in negative health impacts even at low concentration.”
We are firmly committed to the innovative, low-cost solutions, accompanied by effective social implementation models, that are desperately needed to address both the social needs of at-risk communities who are disproportionately affected by these modern water challenges, as well as the increasingly complex technical water challenges we are now facing in the 21st century.
That’s why over the last eleven years, we at Caminos de Agua have developed and implemented actionable solutions like rainwater harvesting systems, composting toilets, and our internally-developed and award-winning technologies, Aguadapt and our new Groundwater Treatment System. Through these solutions, we have directly impacted over 45,000 people to date. In the coming five years, however, we’re looking to multiply that impact by directly impacting more than another 225,000 people in our watershed and throughout Mexico. The successful combination of our innovative technologies, along with our community development and educational models, allows us to now create replicable and scalable results that will reach well beyond the borders of our watershed moving forward.
GTS – Community-Scale Treatment for Arsenic and Fluoride Contamination
Our pioneering Groundwater Treatment System (GTS), which won first prize at the RELX Environmental Challenge in 2022, is a key innovation to dealing with the systemic challenges of arsenic and fluoride contamination, as it is the first to effectively and inexpensively remove these contaminants at the community scale, and it is now ready for wider deployment. After more than 6 years of development, and two successful pilot projects, our vision for the next five years is to have 10 full-scale systems operating in substantially larger communities, directly benefiting 10,000 people in our region. Through this, we will develop a comprehensive model – including both the technical and social components – that can be easily replicable by governments, NGOs, and other key actors in regions facing similar water quality challenges. We are already working with the State Water Commission of Guanajuato to validate our current GTS, a critical step to further replication.
Photo: Allie Álvarez (on the left) – Director of Technology at Caminos – explaining to a group of supporters how the GTS functions together with our Community Organizer Ana Torres (on the right and wearing glasses) and María del Rosario Cenovio (on the far right), who was part of the original water committee in charge of operating this system.
Aguadapt – Accessible Household Water Treatment
The GTS is not our only award-winning technology experiencing a broad expansion of use, our ceramic water filter, Aguadapt, is now undergoing a deep transformation to make it commercially available for government and NGO partners around the country. This will allow us to diversify our funding sources while, at the same time, expanding clean water access to tens of thousands in vulnerable communities with a proven and sustainable water filtration technology designed for household use.
Photo: María José (in pink), Aguadapt Supervisor at Caminos, verifying the production of our ceramic filter together with Julio Corzo (on the left) – our ceramic production partner – and Charlie Sellers (PhD) (on the right), a key technical advisor and board member working with Caminos on the Aguadapt.
Transforming Rainwater as a Broader Resource
Rainwater systems continues to be a needed and effective solution, and we are greatly expanding our reach through strategic partnerships. Today, we are partnering with the Municipal Government of San Diego de la Unión, as well as the Gonzalo Río Arronte Foundation, Rotoplas, and numerous grassroots organizations and NGO patterns, like INANA A.C., CUVAPAS, and SECOPA, all to dramatically increase our impact through collaboration. Through these partnerships, we will have installed over 1,200 large-scale rainwater harvesting systems by year’s end, and we are aiming to double that impact in just the next 3 years.
As we look towards the future, one of our major strategies will be to capture substantially more rainwater – not only in cisterns but also in soils and reservoirs – to utilize this resource for much more than only drinking water in water stressed communities. We’re formalizing new partnerships with organizations like Tikkun and Salvemos al Río Laja to create new integrated projects that combine our rainwater harvesting and treatment alternatives with “rain gardens,” reforestation programs, greater watershed management, and the rehabilitation of massive community-scale rainwater catchment reservoirs. These more holistic projects will help create substantially more resilient communities.
Photo: Community members working on the construction of ferrocement Rainwater Harvesting System.
Expanding Our Reach Through Education
A key part of what has proven to make the Caminos de Agua approach unique – and uniquely successful – is our education and outreach program, which we utilize in every community we engage with. We are currently diligently working on a major redesign of our educational materials to include updated and expanded sections on water and health.
Photo: Saúl Juárez, Community Projects Coordinator at Caminos, giving a technical workshop on how to install a rainwater harvesting system.
To maximize the impact of our work, we are also producing a new Facilitator’s Manual, which we will be able to use with community groups as well as other partner organizations, high schools, government agencies, and other educators to spearhead these projects on their own, requiring far less direct assistance from Caminos. This way we can considerably broaden our reach, impact, and results effectively and efficiently in the coming years without having to grow our team on a one to one basis. With our new Facilitator’s Manual and updated materials, we will enable communities and other stakeholders to fully control the process of learning, sharing, organizing, and installing water solutions for themselves with minimal guidance and oversight from Caminos.