Final workshop and closing activities in Costa Rica for the bilateral project GREAT

Since March 2019, the INOWAS group works together with researchers from Universidad Nacional in Costa Rica on promoting managed aquifer recharge and other green adaptation techniques for reducing the seasonal water scarcity in Guanacaste region in the northwestern part of the country. The project GREAT was funded within the programme “Joint Networking and Research Projects” between MICITT and BMBF and ended in August 2022 with a last mission in Costa Rica. The trip included several activities in San José, Heredia, Liberia and the coastal areas of Guanacaste province.

On Tuesday, 9 August, the group held a meeting with representatives of SENARA when we agreed to continue the efforts of promoting MAR in the country by initiating a small-scale pilot project with local participation and adapted to SENARA's needs. During the afternoon of the same day, Dr. Catalin Stefan gave a lecture on “Web-based planning tools for climate change adaptation” to students and staff members of UNA at the main university campus in Liberia.

On 10 August, the joint project team from UNA, SENARA and TUD organised an international seminar entitled "Nature-based solutions for water security". The INOWAS group contributed with two talks by Dr. Catalin Stefan on "Nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation" and by MSc. Catalina Zapata on “Examples of managed aquifer recharge in Latin America”. The seminar benefited of the participation from all institutions involved, local authorities, private companies, NGOs and representatives from general public.

On 11 August, HIDROCEC-UNA (Centro de Recursos Hídricos para Centroamérica y el Caribe) organised a public lecture at the Sede Regional Chorotega, Campus Liberia Guanacaste where both Dr. Stefan and MSc. Zapata gave lectures to local students.

The trip included meetings with the Dean of the Sede Regional Chorotega Campus, a meeting with ASADA Huacas (for which the project team developed a numerical groundwater flow model and simulated various MAR scenarios), as well as several field trips along the coastal areas of Guanacaste.

Concluding this project, the INOWAS team would like to address our gratitude to our funding agency BMBF and also to our partners and colleagues in Costa Rica. Many thanks for all your support - we are looking very forward to more opportunities for collaboration in the future.