Rainwater volume at the Alberto Santos Buitrago school in El Socorro, Colombia

Abstract

This study calculated the volume of capturable rainwater over a three-month period at the Alberto Santos Buitrago school in the municipality of El Socorro, Colombia. Rainwater is frequently an under-developed natural resource, due to the minimal investment by public entities, and to the lack of awareness and education of the local inhabitants in this regard. Due to the significant climatic changes occurring across Colombia, however, new interest has arisen in utilizing this resource. The Universidad de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia, and the Universidad Libre in El Socorro, Colombia, have joined forces to promote projects focused upon the use of these resources to ameliorate the condition of vulnerable green areas, which tend to deteriorate during dry summer months, as occurred during this study, due to local geographic conditions and the impacted population; in these case young, low-income students of this rural municipality. Such a water storage and distribution system could also serve a valuable role in the school’s sanitary facilities, and for cleaning public areas, with a total of 35.01 m3 of rainwater collected on school roofs. Nevertheless, upon the delivery of the results of the current study, a significant lack of interest was evident on the part of the directors of public institutions in implementing this type of sanitary system. It is thus necessary for the community itself to commit to incentivizing and promoting the implementation and improvement of these new mechanisms.