WATER MANAGEMENT IN COLOMBIA FROM THE SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS FRAMEWORK

Abstract

Nowadays the main challenge for water management is to seek water resilience. The socio-ecological systems approach was developed by Ostrom with the aim of synthesizing knowledge to foster a better understanding of the relationship between people, institutions and the environment. The SES framework allows us to identify the SES main characteristics and provide information on the modes of interaction and self-organization processes between the actors involved in the collective management of the common use resource. Actually, Colombia presents a great vulnerability of water scarcity, so the purpose of this paper was to review actual water management in Colombia and propose the social-ecological systems framework that allows safeguarding and sustaining the water cycle, guaranteeing a sufficient water supply and providing a stable climate system for secure human well-being in Colombia.