Last Friday, 25 November, the last educational workshop of the technical dissemination cycle of the Pilot Project for the Determination of Groundwater Well Protection Perimeters was held,

with the aim of safeguarding the human supply of groundwater over the long term, in both quality and quantity.

Through the educational workshops, carried out in the final stage of the pilot project, the aim was to raise awareness among the student population about the importance of groundwater and the care that must be taken to preserve it, considering that access to drinking water and sanitation is a fundamental human right established in Art. 47 of the country's Constitution. 

The workshops took place in nine educational centres in localities of the department of San José that are exclusively supplied by groundwater from the Raigón Aquifer and are located within the Santa Lucía River Basin: Raigón, Libertad, Ciudad del Plata, Rodríguez, Capurro and Punta de Valdez. These workshops were aimed at primary school students from 4th to 6th grade and secondary school students in the first and second year of the Bachillerato (in secondary school), EMP and EMT (CETP Agricultural School).

Through entertaining and interactive activities, an inter-institutional team made up of technicians from the National Water Directorate (Dinagua), the Regional Centre for Groundwater Management (CeReGAS), OSE, ANEP and the Municipality of San José, presented the processes used to supply drinking water to the population, the treatment of wastewater, as well as the link between the activities carried out in the territory and how they could potentially affect groundwater.

As a result, the knowledge from the workshop is transferred to the territory of the Santa Lucía River Basin itself, as a way of guaranteeing future territorial planning that takes into account the forms and times of contamination of the groundwater that is then used for human consumption. 

By means of the perimeters for the protection of water wells, the aim is to regulate activities or installations in the territory that could contaminate groundwater, or that affect the flow actually used to supply the population. To this end, the determination of perimeters is a useful tool for the different administrations responsible for managing territorial planning.

The Pilot Project for the Determination of Groundwater Well Protection Perimeters is carried out within the framework of the Adaptation in Action - Santa Lucia Basin project, financed by Euroclima+ and implemented by the National Water Directorate (Dinagua) of the Ministry of Environment, which seeks to ensure the drinking water supply of 60% of the country's population.