Managing Water for the City of the Future

Urbanisation is high in Metropolitan Lima and Callao city, home to 8,472.935 residents in 2008. Annual rainfall is almost non-existent at around 9 mm a year, so these cities get their water from surface and underground sources, with a high dependence on the Andes glaciers. Around 75% of the available water is used for human consumption, 22% by agriculture in peri-urban and urban areas and the rest (3%) on green spaces and for industrial and mining activities.

In Lima, the focus selected was scaling up the reuse of wastewater in green productive areas in an extremely water scarce environment (only 13 mm rainfall per year). Key players included national ministries, national water authority, local governments, and an NGO. The project developed learning alliances both at national level focusing on policy issues and at local level linked to a demonstration project and related research. The main outcomes were a successful demonstration project showing how water could be safely reused for multiple purposes, and the development and official approval by government of new national policy guidelines that promote safe re-use of wastewater in the country.

• SWITCH city paper: Lima
• Situational Analysis of urban water for urban agriculture
• Analysis and demonstration of treatment and reuse of waste water
• Policy guidelines – For promoting water treatment systems which reuse domestic and municipal waste water for irrigating urban and peri-urban green areas (Lima, Peru)
• Urban Agriculture Magazine: Issue 20 | Issue 23
• Panorama de experiencias de tratamiento y uso de aguas residuales y de agricultura urbana en la ciudad de Lima (Peru)

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Demonstrations in Lima: Recycling wastewater and nutrients

Lima Learning Alliance: Blog | Poster | Website (Spanish)

SWITCH Demonstration Project: Lima city poster

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Click here to view a list of resources associated with Lima.
Click here to view a list of resources associated with Learning Alliances.

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