In the last 170 years, the Colombian glacier area was reduced by 90 percentand that only in ten years, between 2010 and 2020, it fell by 26 percent.
This is one of the conclusions of the 2022 National Water Report presented the week that ended by the Ministry of the Environment in conjunction with Ideam, in which A balance of the country’s water situation was presented.
In the report, the researchers say that, if the previous trend continues, Colombian glaciers will be completely extinct by the end of this century.
In this regard, the Minister of the Environment, Susana Muhamad, said that “the situation of the glaciers is dramatic. We are going to have a decrease in glacierswhich shows the effect of climate change”.
The six glaciers that Colombia has are at risk.
These are located in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Sierra Nevada El Cocuy, Nevado del Ruiz, Nevado Santa Isabel, Nevado del Tolima and Nevado del Huila.
However, the study anticipates the extinction, in ten years, of Santa Isabel, after the effects of the El Niño phenomenon 2015-2016which drastically impacted the Colombian snow-capped mountains, due to the decrease in precipitation and the increase in air temperature in the high Colombian mountains.
The investigation, given every four yearsreveals the x-ray of the water resource in the country and the great challenges for the future in terms of supply, quality and demand.
The document reveals that although Colombia is a country rich in water, a total of 835 municipalities in the country They are susceptible to liquid shortages, in the middle of the rainy season.
Likewise, it indicates that despite the fact that 78% of the territory could take advantage of groundwater, only 15% of the aquifer systems are known.
The National Water Study is the result of a work carried out with 30 scientists and 54 institutionsfor four years, in the Pacific, Amazon, Caribbean, Orinoco and Magdalena-Cauca regions.
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