THE PROJECT
The Natural Infrastructure for Water Security project promotes the conservation, restoration, and rehabilitation of ecosystems at the national scale in Peru. We build alliances with public and private actors to reduce water risks such as drought, flooding, and pollution.
The project is promoted and supported financially by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Government of Canada, and led by Forest Trends, CONDESAN, the Peruvian Environmental Law Society (SPDA), EcoDecisión, and experts from Imperial College London.
OUR VISION
Natural infrastructure investments are implemented at large scale.
We’re working to radically increase the annual value of investments in natural infrastructure projects by unlocking resources for projects. We accelerate progress through capacity-building and technical assistance to take projects from early stages to implementation at scale.
Natural infrastructure is effective, sustainable, and gender-sensitive.
To make natural infrastructure sustainable at a large scale, we need to engage a large number of actors, and strengthen their capacity to efficiently design and manage nature-based solutions. We plan to train more than one thousand project developers in Peru to design, measure, and manage natural infrastructure interventions, and to construct cost-effective and sustainable project portfolios.
Cross-sector collaboration becomes business-as-usual.
We seek to build a common vision and road map for natural infrastructure in water resources management planning in Peru, based on performance and fully integrated at the national level and at the watershed level.
Financial resources for natural infrastructure increase.
The Project seeks to engage new funders and investors by more effectively communicating the “business case” for natural infrastructure and innovative financial mechanisms. This can secure and increase the availability of financial resources for natural infrastructure at different stages during the project implementation cycle.
PROJECT BIODATA
PROJECT OBJECTIVES AND INTERMEDIATE RESULTS
Objective 1:
Objective 2:
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PROJECT SCOPE
The project has a national scope in terms of its impact on policies, programs and institutions at that level. However, in order to focus our efforts and have an impact at a regional scale, the Chira-Piura, Chillón-Rímac-Lurín-Alto Mantaro, Quilca-Chili, Tambo-Ilo-Moquegua, Mayo, and Vilcanota-Urubamba basins have been prioritized as key zones for intervention.
Our work at the basin level focuses on the development of learning sites, where the project and our partners will generate models, evidence, and learning that can inform the scaling and design of natural infrastructure at both the basin level and the national level. Key partners within basins include Watershed Water Resources Councils, regional governments, local NGOs, community organizations, and local governments.
Learning Sites
NATURAL INFRASTRUCTURE
BUILT INFRASTRUCTURE AND NATURAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Investments in engineered, or “gray,” infrastructure play an important role in development. Infrastructure improves a country’s economic competitiveness, helps attract private investment, and improves living standards. However, gray infrastructure’s long-term effectiveness depends on another type of infrastructure, which takes the form of healthy ecosystems and biodiversity rather than concrete and steel. This “natural infrastructure,” functions independently of human interference but provides us with a set of services called “ecosystem services.” Natural infrastructure and physical infrastructure should be considered as two elements that complement and support one another.
WHAT IS NATURAL INFRASTRUCTURE?
Nature-based solutions conserve or restore the functions of natural infrastructure.
WHAT IS WATER SECURITY?
Water security is the capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to sufficient quantities of water of acceptable quality to 1) support of livelihoods, human wellbeing and socio-economic development; 2) guarantee protection against waterborne contamination and water-related disasters; and 3) conserve ecosystems in a peaceful and stable political climate.
INVESTMENT IN NATURAL INFRASTRUCTURE IS GROWING
Water stewards in at least 62 countries have recognized that natural infrastructure can save costs and reduce risks. This recognition has driven billions of dollars in investment for watershed conservation around the world.
Well-designed and managed natural infrastructure projects will improve water quality, secure water
supply, and manage natural hazards. They also have social and environmental benefits with the potential to support 14 out of 17 of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Natural infrastructure activities provide direct benefits (such as more jobs and cleaner water), while others provide direct benefits to rural, upstream communities (such as the inclusion of women, Indigenous Peoples, and marginalized communities in water management practices and stakeholder conversations).
In 2017, successive states of emergencies – caused first by drought and forest fires in Northern Peru, and then by floods and landslides as a result of ‘El Niño Costero’ along the Pacific coast – demonstrated the country’s vulnerability to natural disasters that threaten water security.
Peruvian leaders have increasingly recognized the critical role that natural infrastructure must play to meet their water challenges. In recent years, USD 30 million in water tariffs have been allocated to natural infrastructure via funds for payments for ecosystem services, and an additional USD 86 million tariffs allocated for climate change adaptation and disaster risk management.
WHAT IS LIMITING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF NATURAL INFRASTRUCTURE IN PERU?
- Lack of a robust project pipeline
- Lack of capacity and guidance for designing sustainable, gender-inclusive projects
- Lack of coordination across sectors
- Insufficient financial resources in some regions
An acute water crisis is threatening the world today.
Population growth, decade-long droughts, devastating floods and wildfires, and rapidly deteriorating water quality have made access to clean water uncertain and more costly.
We need to rethink our water infrastructure.
Supporting natural infrastructure can enhance the performance of gray infrastructure. For instance, conserving wetlands can help to ensure water supplies for diversion channels or tunnels; preventing erosion can extend the life span of a reservoir.
Natural infrastructure needs active management.
Forests and wetlands have helped store and filter water long before dams were constructed and treatment plants were built. That role is now at risk. To effectively address our current water crisis, today’s water managers must actively manage natural infrastructure in addition to gray infrastructure.
NEWSLETTER
Subscribe to our quarterly newsletter to receive news, event notices, and updates on the Natural Infrastructure for Water Security project. Please contact Arlene Villanueva at the email address below to be added to the list. Include your name, organization, and email address. [Please note that this newsletter is published only in Spanish.]
If you’d like to contribute to the project, or if you have any other questions or enquiries, please write to us at avillanueva@spda.org.pe
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