Valoración económica del Servicio Ambiental Hídrico del páramo de la Comunidad Chibuleo, Cantón Ambato

Abstract

The present work Economic valuation of the environmental water service of the Chibuleo Community wasteland. It had the main objective of determining the economic value of the environmental water supply service that the Chibuleo Community paramo owns for consumers and its owners, through the Barrantes and Vega Method in order to promote better decisions and sustainable use , it was determined that the community of Chibuleo has a unique biodiversity and has a water supply service of 335m3 / year, the inhabitants are small producers whose main productive activity is agriculture with the cultivation of potatoes as their main item. The volume of water available was 335m3 / year representing an annual flow of 255,325 liters / year, the importance of the vegetation cover that was 91%, the opportunity cost USD 144 / ha / year ;, the area of water interest that was 720 hectares. Once these data were obtained, the economic value of the water supply service was calculated, obtaining a value of USD 0.35 / m3, if this charge will be made to the families, about USD 84,989.52 would be generated with this item it was proposed the generation of management plans with an environmental, productive and associative approach to promote decisions and sustainable use.