Restauración integral de cuencas fluviales urbanas mediante el uso de tecnologías sostenibles: el Morro de Moravia

Abstract

El Morro de Moravia is a hill located on alluvial deposits of the Aburrá River in the Northeast Slope of Medellín, Colombia. Between 1972 and 1984 it was used as a solid waste dump. This disposal of waste in the area caused people dedicated to recycling to begin invading "El Morro", thus initiating an uncontrolled and unplanned human settlement on the site. Starting in 1999, studies were carried out that showed that the Morro de Moravia presented a high geotechnical and contamination risk, proving that the population that inhabits the area is subject to a high chemical risk and does not have the minimum environmental and health conditions. This establishes the need to initiate sanitation through a project applied to integrated restoration in urban river basins. With the signing of the Framework Agreement in April 2006, the bases of cooperation between the universities of Antioquia and the Polytechnic of Catalonia are established, whose main objective is to promote research in sustainable technologies for water management applied to the restoration of watersheds. urban rivers, through the construction of constructed artificial wetlands and buffer strips in the basin of the Colombian region of Moravia. Whose function will be the treatment of leachate on the hill of "Morro de Moravia". Initially, a toxic compounds monitoring process will be carried out to determine the presence of elements and compounds such as ammonia, mercury, lead, chromium, cadmium, phenols, cyanides, sulfides and benzene, in the samples collected from the leachates. Subsequently, the design and construction of the wetlands will be carried out. The treatment of contaminated effluents and the restoration of the area will favor the reduction of the presence of toxic substances in the environment, improve public and environmental health conditions. These alternatives for the sanitation of the area, not only represent environmental benefits, but also have a positive impact on the social and economic level of the community. Likewise, relations will be strengthened and networking will be strengthened, increasing the relations existing between different multidisciplinary research groups and the links between the universities and the participating environmental entities. In addition, the experience will serve as a model for university institutional strengthening through training and research in water purification of river basins using sustainable technologies.