Environmental Protection and Sustainable Integrated Management of the Guarani Aquifer

The main objective of the proposed initiative would be to support Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay in jointly elaborating and implementing a common institutional framework for managing and preserving the Guarani Aquifer for current and future generations. The Guarani Aquifer, named in honor of the Guarani Indian Nation, is one of the largest groundwater reservoirs in the world, and was only recently recognized as one interconnected system, extending through the four MERCOSUR countries for a total of 1.2 million km2. Total reserves would be enough to supply the entire population of Brazil for 3,500 years.The project would be of a preventive nature and would include interventions regerding expansion and consolidation of the current knowledge base, creation of collaborative management framework, information for public participation, and monitoring and evaluation. Given the susceptibility of groundwater resources to pollution and the quasi irreversibility of polluted groundwater sources, a management mechanism that would prevent pollution would yield socio-economic and environemental benefits, both at a local and regional transboundary scale.