The University of Magdalena and the District Mayor’s Office will work together to evaluate the quality of the Santa Marta aquifer. The initiative will have the support of other public and private institutions. For monitoring, a monitoring network will be installed in 10 strategic points in the city.
This project is part of the base document of the 2024-2027 Development Plan: Santa Marta 500 Más. Its execution will be carried out through a comprehensive surveillance and control system that evaluates variations in flow rates, fluctuations in temperature parameters, identifies possible environmental risks and takes preventive and corrective measures in a timely manner.
“Important city decisions must be made now. In this sense, the University of Magdalena is committed to providing concrete data, information, figures and knowledge that allows the territory to be better organized. “We need to manage water more appropriately.” Said the Rector Pablo Vera Salazar.
The initiative, established through a meeting between Rector Pablo Vera Salazar and Luis Felipe Gutiérrez, Infrastructure Manager of Santa Marta, has the technical and academic support of students and teachers of the Unimagdalena Civil Engineering Program. They will provide knowledge to the Mayor’s Office and the communities in the monitoring and conservation process. Also cooperating: the Magdalena Regional Autonomous Corporation -Corpamag-, the Public Services Company of the District of Santa Marta -Essmar- and the District Administrative Department for Environmental Sustainability -Dadsa-.
Students participate under the modality of professional practices in the area of Civil Engineering. They accompany the Infrastructure Office of the Mayor’s Office of Santa Marta within the framework of its duty to supervise and supervise the city’s works.
For this activity, the University of Magdalena has piezometers, which are elements that monitor the state of the aquifers. Through them, information is obtained that is displayed on the Aquatick platform and reports the volume of aquifer discharge, the intrusion of the sea wedge, changes in the water table levels and determines possible overexploitation.
Measurements include variables such as: conductivity, depth levels, salinity, temperature and total dissolved solids. Likewise, the University of Magdalena will support the Mayor’s Office with an air quality monitoring network to obtain information on weather conditions on peak and plateau days and show the levels of pollution emitted by public transportation.
It should be noted that in the creation of the base document Development Plan 2024-2027: Santa Marta 500 Más, a team from the University of Magdalena participated as technical support.
