Author(s): Gerhard Grossmann; Roland Schimpf; Peter Wicke

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Keywords: Deteriorating Landscape; Changed River-runoff Patterns; Erosion and Sedimentation; Multidisciplinary approaches; Environment Service Payments

Abstract: Since the first half of the twentieth century special emphasis is laid on hydro-development in Peru, given the longstanding water management history stemming from antecessors like the Tihuantinsuyu people (Inkas) or even previous real hydro societies. Paradoxically, the Spanish Conquistadores–although in earlier days having inherited well organized irrigation schemes from the Arabs (“Moros”) –pulled down the Andean Heritage water infrastructures and let them gradually “die”, yet already in earlier times the higher Andes landscape was subject to degradation due to slash+burn practices in autochthonous wood areas which functioned as water retainers. It was only in our days that water schemes resuscitated, however on different scales, compared with those of the Inkas, and under varied approaches: Damming for the creation of big storage volumes, transferring Amazon-water to the Pacific by means of penetrating the Cordillera (through long and painstaking tunnel drives), managing huge irrigation areas where there once desert plains dominated, and, as a “marginal” effect getting clean but not so cheap hydro energy. In certain cases such schemes, however, were going in tandem with ecological negative side-effects and with social disintegration, this in turn presenting a cause of national concern. It is where we can draw the attention on some interesting examples that are both technically challenging and socio-culturally defying: NorthPeruvian Dam-Schemes.

DOI:

Year: 2004