Groundwater governance in the karstic tropics

Abelardo Rodríguez-López and Emilio de los Rios Ibarra
Additional contact information
Abelardo Rodríguez-López: Abelardo Rodriguez Associates

No d2xsk, OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science

Abstract: The industrial livestock and agriculture production in the Merida Metropolitan area, Yucatan Mexico, relies on groundwater in a karstic environment, leading to water pollution due to a weak regulatory scheme. The study aims to assess whether most groundwater users are aware of the tradeoff between short-term economic gains and the sustainability of the aquifer, as well as to determine the necessary incentives for regulating groundwater use by major polluters to ensure sustainability. Official municipal secondary data on swine and poultry production is analyzed to estimate nitrogen excreta following ASAE guidelines. Concessions for groundwater extraction and permits to release wastewater into the aquifer at the municipal level are assessed concerning the amount of nitrogen excreted. We have found that the nitrogen excreted is too high to be absorbed by the limited agricultural land, and it would require a circular economy to dispose of the excess nitrogen. However, this evidence and possible alternatives are not easily accepted by those involved in the pollution process that has been identified for the past 25 years.

Date: 2024-06-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://osf.io/download/665cb29465e1de4c64893b44/

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:osfxxx:d2xsk

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/d2xsk

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by OSF ().