Water Sustainability: A Socioeconomic Analysis of Panama Using MuSIASEM Approach

Abstract

Sustainable development is growth that respects, without compromising, the needs of present and future society. Such sustainability is currently implemented in our society, which has absorbed and processed resources unconsciously for decades. The main objective of this research is to evaluate water sustainability in Panama through the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Social and Economic Metabolism (MuSIASEM) or MuSIASEM scheme, which allows interrelating aspects of Panamanian society to create a metabolic pattern from 2004 to 2019. This methodology analyzes the country's economic, water and demographic variables, studying their interrelation to generate the socioeconomic metabolism. Thus, water consumption, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the Panamanian population were studied for the selected period. From the database, Panamanian demography has grown linearly during the period studied with a service economy mostly. Concerning the interrelation of the variables, except for the government sector, all sectors showed a correlation between the variables. This correlation reveals the influence between economic growth and water consumption. In conclusion, we emphasize the influence of the State in water sustainability, implementing measures to make efficient use of resources and enhance the economy-also the capacity of the MuSIASEM grammar as a holistic tool for such analysis.