Participatory modelling of human-water systems with the Mayan community in Tz'olöj Ya', Iximulew

Status: Completed in 2021

Collaborators: Dr. Julien Malard, Prof. Jan F. Adamowski, Marco Ramírez Ramírez, Dr. Wietske Medema, Dr. Héctor Tuy

Lake Atitlán in Tz'olöj Ya' (Solola), Iximulew (Guatemala) has faced severe eutrophication, prompting government proposals for a technocentric solution, the Mega-collector. The latter is a subaquatic wastewater collection structure designed to collect sewage from multiple points around the lake and divert it out of the basin to irrigate monoculture farms. This proposal was strongly contested by many local Mayan community members, for whom the lake is central to social, economic, and cultural life. Community members raised concerns that the project disregarded their priorities, including biodiversity impacts during the construction of the large-scale infrastructure and the implications of reducing lake water quantity by diverting flows out of the watershed.

Our project aimed to co-produce a conceptual model of the lake as a human–water system, grounded in community knowledge, concerns, and priorities. Working closely with community members, we elicited local perspectives on the interactions between hydrological and socio-economic variables, including community-defined concerns and values, and translated these insights into a conceptual systems model. The resulting model was intended to serve as an advocacy tool for building a counternarrative to contest the proposed technocentric solution.

Methodologically, we used storylines and diagramming techniques across a series of interviews and workshops. All fieldwork was conducted in Mayan Kaqchikel. Non-Mayan members of our team (including myself) learned the language prior to commencing fieldwork to support community-led ways of engagement.

This work was published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, presented at multiple conferences, and featured in an interview with Radio-Canada.