Focus area
Bogotá River (Río Bogotá)
A high Andean river that runs past Bogotá and receives much of the city's wastewater on its way to the Magdalena.
South America
Colombia
Focus area
The Bogotá River: a high Andean river that carries the wastewater of a capital.
Geography and context
Colombia is a South American country of mountains, rainforest and two coasts. Its capital, Bogotá, sits on a high plateau in the Andes, and the Bogotá River flows past it on its way to the Magdalena River.
The river's basin takes in 47 municipalities of Cundinamarca, and in 2014 Colombia's Council of State issued a ruling with 143 orders to public bodies on recovering it. Public reports describe a long, large-scale effort to build wastewater treatment capacity for the city.
Focus area
Opportunities we may explore
- Learn from Colombian river, water and community organizations before anything else.
- Explore simple, repeatable riverbank surveys and water monitoring that local teams can maintain.
- Look at ways to reduce litter and untreated drain flows reaching the river, working with neighborhood groups.
- Treat safe water access as its own program, led by qualified local specialists.
Organizations to explore
Organization to exploreWorks on this waterway
Fundación Al Verde Vivo
A Bogotá non-profit (ONG) founded in 1994. Its website says its early focus was water problems on the Bogotá River, including river expeditions and international river conferences, and that it now restores riparian and high-Andean forest in the upper Bogotá basin, with a goal of planting 1.5 million trees. A BBVA article on a reforestation alliance describes its work in the upper Río Bogotá basin.
Organization to exploreWorks in a related habitat
Fundación Humedales Bogotá
A non-profit founded in 2011 as a citizen environmental education project on Bogotá's wetlands. Its website lists ecological walks, tree planting, workshops, bird monitoring and citizen science, and a state-of-knowledge document on the wetlands of the Bogotá River basin prepared under an agreement with the Humboldt Institute. Its main work is on wetlands rather than the river channel.
Official website of Fundación Humedales Bogotá (external site)
Organization to exploreCountry-level expertise
Fundación Alma
A Colombian non-profit founded in 1985 that works on ecological restoration and environmental education. Its website describes a project on artisanal fishing on the Magdalena River, and a BBVA article describes its riparian-forest restoration around the Ciénaga de Zapatosa. Its sources do not tie it to the Bogotá River itself, only to the Magdalena basin the Bogotá joins.
Know these waters?
If you live or work in Colombia, your knowledge matters more than ours. We would like to listen.
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