The Ministry of Environment and Energy and the Geological Service of the United States signed an agreement to evaluate the country’s aquifers.
The agreement is called “Mapping of underground water resources in Costa Rica” and it will allow, through high technology, to obtain images and information on the characteristics of the surface, infrastructure, rocks, and vegetation.
The authorities assured that this new technology will save time and money to the country because it will improve the success rate of drilling instead of continuing based on obsolete data or drilling by trial or error.
It is difficult to manage resources, if you do not have knowledge… We need to know what we have to manage it well,”
said the Minister of Environment and Energy, Edgar Gutiérrez.
José Miguel Zeledón, Water Director of MINAE, said that the project will consist of four stages. In the first, the WATEX tool will be applied; in the second, a hydrogeological evaluation will be carried out. The third stage will consist of optimizing the use of the resource in a sustainable manner and finally, in the fourth stage, a technology transfer will be made.
The process will be useful to minimize future impacts of droughts and climate change and it will be led by Dr. Saud Amer, from the United States Geological Survey.
The project will have a total cost of $ 1,458,243, that is, 839 million colones.