Centro de Investigación de la Biodiversidad y Cambio Climático
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Water quality assessment of the cutuchi river basin (Ecuador): A review of technical documents

2021 , Zapata D. , Oleas Gallo, Nora Helena , Páez-Vacas, Mónica , Tobes, Ibon

The Cutuchi River Basin extends over the inter-Andean valley south of the Cotopaxi Volcano, in Ecuador. It flows through two provinces, Cotopaxi and Tungurahua, and its waters are extensively used to irrigate crops that provide food to the main cities in the country. Unfortunately, the basin receives untreated domestic and industrial discharges. The need for an environmental quality assessment of the river has been acknowledged over the years. The aim of this study is to gather information about water quality of the Cutuchi River through a historical bibliographic review. A total of 57 works published between 2007 and 2018 were found, including books, articles, thesis and project reports. Only 18 documents provided biological, physical, or chemical data linked to water quality. The data obtained through the literature review were compared with maximum thresholds from national and international regulations. Unfortunately, revised studies were scattered on time and randomly along the basin and did not provide robust information to evaluate the state of the water-system. Some contamination was detected significantly exceeding safety thresholds. More exhaustive studies along the basin are needed as a baseline to help the decision makers to design management plans and mitigate human impacts. © 2020 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.

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COVID-19 in Relation to Business and Management: A Bibliometric Analysis

2021 , Cruz Cárdenas, Jorge , Guadalupe-Lanas J. , Ramos Galarza, Carlos , Oleas Gallo, Nora Helena , Salazar, Laura , Proaño-Guerrero R.

The COVID-19 crisis has generated considerable research efforts in all areas of knowledge, including the area of business and management. This article aimed to describe the body of knowledge generated on COVID-19 regarding business and management to generate the basis for future research. The present study identified 1,751 relevant articles in the Scopus database. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia stood out in terms scientific production, whereas the National Natural Science Foundation of China dominated in funding studies. The analysis of the co-occurrence of keywords in the articles allowed the identification of four thematic clusters that correspond to the priorities given by the research: 1) the crisis and use of technology to overcome it; 2) leadership and risk management; 3) impact on the hospitality, tourism, and air transport sectors; and 4) social impact and corporate social responsibility. This article ends by discussing these results and their implications. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

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Urban stream renovation: Incorporating societal objectives to achieve ecological improvements

2016 , Smith R.F. , Hawley R.J. , Neale M.W. , Vietz G.J. , Diaz-Pascacio E. , Herrmann J. , Lovell A.C. , Prescott C. , Rios-Touma B. , Smith B. , Utz R.M.

Pervasive human impacts on urban streams make restoration to predisturbance conditions unlikely. The effectiveness of ecologically focused restoration approaches typically is limited in urban settings because of the use of a reference-condition approach, mismatches between the temporal and spatial scales of impacts and restoration activities, and lack of an integrative approach that incorporates ecological and societal objectives. Developers of new frameworks are recognizing the opportunities for and benefits from incorporating societal outcomes into urban stream restoration projects. Social, economic, cultural, or other benefits to local communities are often opportunistic or arise indirectly from actions intended to achieve ecological outcomes. We propose urban stream renovation as a flexible stream improvement framework in which short-term ecological and societal outcomes are leveraged to achieve long-term ecological objectives. The framework is designed to provide additional opportunities for beneficial outcomes that are often unattainable from ecologically focused restoration approaches. Urban stream renovation uses an iterative process whereby short-term ecological and societal outcomes generate public support for future actions, which may provide opportunities to address catchment-level causes of impairment that often exist across broad temporal scales. Adaptive management, education, and outreach are needed to maintain long-term public engagement. Thus, future work should focus on understanDing how ecological and societal contexts interact, how to assess societal outcomes to maintain stewardship, developing new methods for effective education and outreach, and multidisciplinary collaborations. We discuss potential abuses and the importance of linking societal outcomes to long-term ecological objectives. © 2016 by The Society for Freshwater Science.

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Citizen science as a tool for education: First Bioblitz in Quito, Ecuador

2023 , Páez-Vacas M. , Bustamante M.R. , Baer N. , Oleas N.H. , Adriana Argoti M. , Sandra Espinoza F. , Lozano Z. , Morales-Espín B. , Mercedes Gavilanez M. , Donoso D.A. , Franco-Mena D., Brito J. , Miguel Pinto C. , Salazar L. , Endara M.-J. , Falconí-López A. , Bravo-Vera E. , Sánchez-Lara E. , Rivera-Albuja J. , Mena L. , Muñoz-Lara K. , Navas D. , Ortiz-Galarza F.M. , Pamballo T. , Pineda D. , Rivadeneira J. , Segura S. , Valencia K. , Vásquez-Barba P. , Salazar-Valenzuela D.

Bioblitz is a citizen global science initiative which aims to find and identify as many species of fauna and flora as possible in a specific area during a short period of time. This activity promotes the engagement of the public to learn about the biodiversity of a particular region, often in urban areas. The objective of this study was to do the first Bioblitz in Quito (Ecuador) to (1) survey the flora and fauna of Quito, specifically in the Guangüiltagua Metropolitan Park; and (2) engage citizens in such activity. This first Bioblitz, held on December 2, 2017, was organized by Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica and Fundación Zoológica del Ecuador. The event was attended by 15 experts, 21 students, and 29 citizens, including two children under 10 years of age. Standard biological diversity assessment methods were used for amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, insects, aquatic macroinvertebrates, and plants. A total of 18 species of birds, two of amphibians, one reptile, 21 terrestrial invertebrates, two macroinvertebrates, one mammal, and 26 plant species were identified. This experience allowed the engagement of citizens to learn about the local biodiversity in their city. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.

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Understanding the Relation with Nature in the City: Biodiversity Knowledge and Environmental Awareness in a Periurban Area of Quito, Ecuador

2022 , Morales-Espín B. , Ortiz F. , Sánchez-Lara E. , Páez-Vacas M. , Muñoz-Lara K. , Bravo-Vera E. , Franco-Mena D. , Baer N. , Oleas N.H. , Tobes I.

The development of ecological sustainability within cities requires raising awareness among citizens of the importance of biodiversity for their daily lives. We evaluated the biodiversity awareness of high school students and their families, working with two schools in Guayllabamba, part of the Metropolitan District of Quito, Ecuador. A total of 405 people answered a survey to evaluate their knowledge about basic biological concepts, urban biodiversity and environmental awareness. People in Guayllabamba have some biodiversity knowledge, mainly for domestic or human-related species, with emphasis on those with direct human uses (food and medicine). The surveyed citizens showed a positive environmental awareness attitude, they consider biodiversity important and use it in their lives. However, we identified gaps in which environmental education should focus for clarifying concepts like “endemic”, “native” or “wild”. Ecosystem contribution of biodiversity is neither well understood. Our results point out AN utilitarian knowledge of nature that can be related to a periurban area where agriculture and farmland still have important presence, and where the daily contact with biodiversity remains. The reinforcement of biological awareness driven by environmental education may be a key component to promote environmentally friendly urban development in the area. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

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