In Costa Rica protected areas reduce the incidence of hydrological disasters

  • This is the main result of a research that can be useful for policy makers in the country, the most relevant information is shown in a four minutes video produced by EfD-CA

March 25, 2020. In a period of 4 years, from 2015 to 2019, a group of researchers from Environment for Development Central America (EfD-CA), and the University of Costa Rica, developed a research study to explore if the presence of natural protected areas reduced the incidence of hydrological disasters in Costa Rica. 

Among the results, in effect, natural protected areas scale down the number of floods or landslides in territories where the protected areas are located upstream the human population. This is possible thanks to the water regulation services provided by these protected areas. 

The results of this research can help policy makers to establish informed decisions and promote measures to reduce the impacts of such disasters. 

To know more about the results, EfD-CA, which is located at CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center), has produced the following video, in Spanish, briefing the main information from the scientific paper titled Do protected areas reduce the incidence of hydrological disasters?

Juan Robalino, Eduardo Pacay, Matias Piaggio and Taylor Rickets were the researchers involved in this work. 

The following video in Spanish summarizes the main findings.

In Costa Rica floods, lands slides and other natural water-related disasters are very common during the rainy season. A research study explored if the presence of natural protected areas reduced the incidence of hydrological disasters in Costa Rica.

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News | 8 May 2020