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Sustainability of Arid Lands in Southern Peru

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Social Ecology and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 January 2024) | Viewed by 8545

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Pablo A. Garcia-Chevesich

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Interests: sustainable water resources management; erosion control and land restoration; watershed hydrology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Armando J. Arenazas-Rodriguez

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Academic Biology Department, Universidad Nacional de San Agustin de Arequipa, Arequipa, Peru
Interests: development biology; ecology; ecotoxicology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The southern region of Peru has been affected by climate change, which has caused the reduction of glaciers, changes in temperatures, extreme rainfall events, droughts, and a decrease in surface and groundwater levels. Likewise, the area has been affected by anthropic activities (mining, agriculture, etc.), which, associated with a lack of environmental regulations, have caused water scarcity, as well as water, soil and air pollution in the region.

All of these factors compromise the sustainability of the area and, since not many scientific papers have been published in the English language on this important subject, this Special Issue has been created to invite the scientific community of southern Peru to share the results of their research and serve as an example for other arid areas of the non-developed world that are facing similar problems.

Authors are cordially invited to submit the following types of manuscripts: research articles, review papers, brief reports, commentaries, and letters to the editor.

The topics that will be considered in this Special Issue are:

Contamination and remediation of water, soil and/or air;
Territorial management and modelling;
Environmental policies and standards;
Socio-environmental conflicts;
Climate change processes and adaptation;
Reuse, recycling, and waste reduction;
Sustainability in the use of natural resources.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Pablo A. Garcia-Chevesich
Dr. Armando J. Arenazas-Rodriguez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

sustainability
southern Peru
arid zones
pollution
climate change
adaptation
social conflicts
waste
policies
remediation

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

31 pages, 12061 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Water Resources Evaluation and Sustainability Considering Climate Change and Future Anthropic Demands in the Arequipa Region of Southern Peru

by Jonathan A. Quiroz, Pablo A. Garcia-Chevesich, Gisella Martínez, Kattia Martínez, Teresa Tejada-Purizaca, Kyle E. Murray and John E. McCray

Sustainability 2023, 15(23), 16270; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152316270 - 24 Nov 2023

Viewed by 1044

Abstract

Climate change and increases in human activities are threatening water availability in the Arequipa Region (southern Peru). However, to date, there has not been a comprehensive inventory of surface water data or an investigation of current surface water conditions or forecasted future conditions resulting from increased anthropic demand or stresses from climate change. This study evaluates surface water resources management including storage, diversions, and conveyance in the Arequipa Region, while creating a tool for the evaluation of future scenarios in the five main watersheds of this arid region of southern Peru. State-of-the art, open-source modeling software was used. Water uses for each watershed were evaluated against predicted reservoir inflows and streamflows for different periods. In addition to the above, 12 climate change models and different shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP) were ensembled for the five watersheds. A semi-distributed approach and an innovative simulation splitting approach was used for each watershed, which allowed for different starting dates for the simulations using all available data obtained from different sources (government and private). Results indicate that the region is expected to have increased flows during the wet season and no significant changes during the dry season. Reservoir inflows are expected to increase up to 42 and 216% for the lowest and highest SSP evaluated, respectively. Similarly, the model projected streamflow increases up to 295 and 704%, respectively. Regarding yearly water availability and considering current and future demands for the watersheds under study, water deficits are not expected in the future if current reservoir storage can be maintained, though it is expected that reservoirs won’t be able to store predicted higher flows, so important volumes of water could be lost during the wet season to the ocean by natural drainage. Given the uncertainty of climate change projections, if future water sustainability is desired, storage and irrigation efficiencies should be improved and reservoir sedimentation should be evaluated. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability of Arid Lands in Southern Peru)

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21 pages, 4566 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Acute Ecotoxicity Potential of Untreated Tannery Wastewater Release in Arequipa, Southern Peru

by Kevin Tejada-Meza, Armando Arenazas-Rodríguez, Pablo A. Garcia-Chevesich, Carmen Flores-Farfan, Lino Morales-Paredes, Giuliana Romero-Mariscal, Juana Ticona-Quea, Gary Vanzin and Jonathan O. Sharp

Sustainability 2023, 15(21), 15240; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152115240 - 25 Oct 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1670

Abstract

The centralized Rio Seco Industrial Park (RSIP) tannery collective in the Southern Peruvian city of Arequipa releases untreated tannery wastewater into a proximal creek that is a tributary of the Chili River. As industrial leather tanning wastewater contains high concentrations of metal(loid)s, salts, dyes, and organics, this complex mixture could exert a myriad of toxicological effects on the surrounding ecosystem. The RSIP effluent was analyzed to quantify the acute ecotoxicity and ecotoxicological status of this untreated industrial wastewater at multiple trophic levels with the following bioindicators: the floating macrophyte Lemna minor, invertebrates Daphnia magna and Physa venustula, and the amphibian Xenopus laevis. A physicochemical characterization of the RSIP effluent revealed a highly contaminated waste stream. In addition to chromium (10.4 ± 0.4 mg/L) and other toxic metals, the water harbored extremely high concentrations of total dissolved solids (67,770 ± 15,600 mg/L), biochemical oxygen demand (1530 ± 290 mg/L) and total nitrogen (490 ± 10 mg/L). The toxicological responses of certain bioindicator species tested were evaluated after exposure to 0, 1.5, 3.0, and 4.5% untreated tannery wastewater blended with dechlorinated tap water. L. minor experienced a significant decrease in the number of fronds, wet weight, and dry weight at the lowest blended wastewater of 1.5%. Bioassays with D. magna showed the effect on neonatal mortality with a calculated LC₅₀ of 1.1% for 48 h. Bioassays with P. venustula embryos showed high sensitivity to diluted effluent with complete mortality at 3.0% wastewater and above. Finally, X. laevis showed a high sensitivity to the dilutions with an LC₅₀ of 1.6 for embryos and 1.8% for tadpoles. Although RSIP wastewater contains many potentially toxic components, chromium and total dissolved solids, with a major contribution from sodium, are best correlated with acute toxicity variables. This suggests that conductivity or analogous measurements could provide a rapid and affordable forensic tool to query acute ecosystem pressures. Collectively, the results indicate that the release of untreated tannery wastewater from RSIP can exert pronounced acute impacts across trophic levels with the need for treatment or dilution to below 1% of total flow. As the assays addressed acute toxicity, the necessary treatment and/or dilution to mitigate chronic effects is likely much lower. In conclusion, untreated RSIP tannery wastewaters represent an ecological risk to downstream aquatic ecosystems; this needs to be addressed to prevent current and future environmental consequences. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability of Arid Lands in Southern Peru)

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17 pages, 5924 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Tracking Sediment Provenance Applying a Linear Mixing Model Approach Using R’s FingerPro Package, in the Mining-Influenced Ocoña Watershed, Southern Peru

by Jorge Crespo, Elizabeth Holley, Madeleine Guillen, Ivan Lizaga, Sergio Ticona, Isaac Simon, Pablo A. Garcia-Chevesich and Gisella Martínez

Sustainability 2023, 15(15), 11856; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151511856 - 1 Aug 2023

Viewed by 1277

Abstract

Stream sediments record water–rock interactions in tributaries followed by fluid mixing in larger downstream catchments, but it can be difficult to determine the relative contributions of each tributary. A good way to analyze this problem is sediment fingerprinting, which allows researchers to identify the source of sediments within a basin and to estimate the contribution of each source to the watershed. Herein, we developed a workflow using the frequentist model FingerPro v1.3 to quantify the sediment source contribution in a semiarid watershed. We applied an unmixing model algorithm to an ICP-MS geochemical database containing information on 32 elements in 362 stream sediment samples. By modeling the source contributions to these mixed samples, we infer that the main sediment contribution comes from the upper portion of the catchment (61–70%), followed by the middle (21–29%) and lower (8–10%) parts, with geochemical anomalies (As and Cu) being closely related to mining sites. Results from this study can be helpful for future management decisions to ensure a better environment in this semiarid watershed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability of Arid Lands in Southern Peru)

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18 pages, 21448 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optimization of a Textile Effluent Treatment System and Evaluation of the Feasibility to Be Reused as Influents in Textile Dyeing Processes

by Patricia López-Casaperalta, Fredy Nicolás Molina-Rodríguez, Fernando Fernandez-F, Jeanette Fabiola Díaz-Quintanilla, Jaime E. Barreda-Del-Carpio, Julio Cesar Bernabe-Ortiz and Jorge Alberto Aguilar-Pineda

Sustainability 2022, 14(23), 15588; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142315588 - 23 Nov 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2084

Abstract

Textile effluents derived from azo-reactive dyeing processes represent a severe problem for aquatic ecosystems and human health. The large amounts of water used in this process and the poor quality of the discharges urge the need to develop treatment systems that involve reusing treated water. In this research, we present the optimization of a feasible, simple, and efficient treatment system that improves the quality of the effluents from the cotton fabric dyeing process. Through the characterization of the influents and effluents, we have identified seven parameters that have allowed the optimization of the treatment. Analytical techniques, such as nephelometry, EDTA, gravimetry, and BOD5, among others, and specialized equipment, such as the spectrophotometer, have been used for these purposes. The results showed that using combustion gases in the neutralization stage and new flocculant-coagulant reagents improved parameters, such as pH, total solids, hardness, and conductivity. The quality of the effluents thus obtained allowed their reuse only in the stages before the dyeing bath without affecting the final quality of the cotton fabrics in dark colors. This effort implies savings in water and supplies, and opens the door to future research on the treatment of textile effluents that help improve the environmental conditions of our region. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability of Arid Lands in Southern Peru)

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17 pages, 12070 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Peruvian Native Bacterial Strains as Potential Bioremediation Agents in Hg-Polluted Soils by Artisanal Mining Activities in Southern Peru

by Patricia López-Casaperalta, Camilo Febres-Molina, Jorge Alberto Aguilar-Pineda, Julio Cesar Bernabe-Ortiz and Fernando Fernandez-F

Sustainability 2022, 14(16), 10272; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141610272 - 18 Aug 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1647

Abstract

Bioremediation of soils and waters due to mercury (Hg) contamination represents one of the most critical environmental challenges. In addition, this challenge is even greater in arid soils due to the low economic interest in these regions. Such is the case of the Secocha Annex, located in the Arequipa province of Camaná in Southern Peru. In this region, the excessive use of Hg in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) activities has seriously endangered the health of its inhabitants. Unfortunately, there are few projects aimed at improving the environmental and sanitary conditions of this locality. An alternative to conventional cleaning technology is the use of native microorganisms that allow the recovery of ecological environments with low-cost and low-tech techniques. This work aims to present two new Hg-resistant bacterial strains obtained from Hg-polluted soils of the Secocha Annex as potential bioremediation agents. Both strains showed growth capacity on Hg substrates and their adsorption behaviors and Hg removal capacities were evaluated. By deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis, both Gram-positive strains were identified as Kocuria sp. (99.35% similarity) and Zhihengliuella sp. (99.78% similarity). Spectrometry results showed elimination capacities with values close to 28.4 and 33.3 % in an incubation time period of 45 days, with the maximum elimination efficiency in the first 24 h. These results are encouraging and offer new possibilities for the use of native strains in the bioremediation of arid soils contaminated with Hg in the Secocha Annex. Furthermore, due to the low cost and minimization of negative impacts, this technique and our bacterial strains could be used in other regions of Peru. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability of Arid Lands in Southern Peru)

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