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The southeast of Córdoba province used to be originally covered by hundreds of wetlands that got heavily modified or drained in the last few decades. Since wetlands provide various important ecosystem services (ESS) for human well-being, their degradation created several problems in La Picasa basin, among which floods are the most obvious one. The wise use of wetlands is increasingly acknowledged to be part of nature-based solution approaches reducing disaster risk. However, in the study area these approaches remain a relatively new concept to decision makers and the lack of knowledge on their effectiveness and implementation process poses a serious barrier to their adoption.
To overcome this obstacle, this dissertation applies an ESS perspective on the current problems of La Picasa basin and sets it in a context of socio-ecological system (SES) theory. A comprehensive analysis of (1) the role wetlands have played in the historic development of the SES, (2) important stakeholder dynamics that create opportunities or restrictions for the conservation of wetlands and (3) possible management approaches to inverse negative ESS trade-offs and feedback loops, was performed.
Results demonstrate that the current problems of floods have both natural and anthropogenic causes. In this regard, wetlands hold a vital role in the complex historic interactions between the social and ecological drivers of changes in the water balance. Although a social network between stakeholders exists, several conflicts prevent a proper functioning of a basin-wide integrated management concept based on wetland restoration. Nature-based solution approaches, putting wetlands in the center of attention of future management strategies, were found to hold a high potential to reduce the risk of floods and, as a side-effect boost biodiversity and habitat quality in the study area.
Wetlands offer different ecosystem services that contribute to human well-being (Kovács et al., 2015). According to the Ramsar Convention Secretariat (2018) wetland located in urban areas have been threatened by several activities such as drainage, pollution, encroachment, agriculture, among others. On the other hand, wetland degradation reduces the resilience of hazards like floods and storm surges (Kumar et al., 2017). For that reason, ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) is an important strategy which enhances the conservation and restoration of ecosystems to reduce disaster risk aiming to sustainable development and resilience (Estrella & Saalismaa, 2013). Despite international recognition of the importance of wetlands, urban wetlands have diminished their capacity to cope with flood threats (Boyer and Polasky, 2006) due to the aforementioned human impacts.
That is why this thesis aimed to identify the role of urban wetlands in Bogota, Colombia, that has an urban wetland complex that is recognised as a Ramsar site in 2018. However, wetlands in the city reduced its area from 50.000 hectares to less than 800, approximately, in less than 40 years, mainly because of urban expansion and encroachment (IDIGER, 2018). To achieve this objective, an analysis of the city’s risk management framework was conducted, as well as a stakeholder analysis based on semi-structured interviews and a spatial-temporal analysis for the period 1998-2017, for which the Jaboque wetland was used as a case study. This wetland is located near the Bogotá River and is in the area threatened by flooding.
It was possible to determine that national and district policies on wetlands, biodiversity, and climate change adaptation address some ecosystem functions. Still, disaster risk reduction is not strongly linked to them. Thus, based on the case study, the wetlands in Bogota have not played a decisive role in flood risk management in the city.