What does water scarcity look like from the territory?
- Aug 26
- 1 min read
A new paper from SURCO, an interdisciplinary research project at Lund University, explores this question through participatory mapping with Wayúu communities in La Guajira and rural communities in Sucre, Colombia.
Our article, “Territorial Perspectives on Water Scarcity: A Standardized Participatory Mapping Framework in Colombian Rural Geographies”, asks how we can compare experiences of water scarcity across territories without erasing local and Indigenous ways of understanding water, nature and territory. The paper shows that water scarcity is not simply about physical availability. It is shaped by access, quality, livelihoods, governance, climate change, biodiversity and knowledge.
This work contributes to SURCO’s broader effort to understand the climate change–water–biodiversity nexus and explore pathways towards more sustainable rural futures. We are grateful to the Wayúu and farming communities and our partners at the Universidad de La Guajira and the Universidad de Sucre.
📖 Read the paper:
