Dry winter subtropical highland

Usually for irrigated agriculture we know how to measure water in the soil easily using some devices. But when you have an open system like rainfed agriculture, how do you measure the efficiency of that system in preserving water? Would it be possible to use proxy data?

The Kaqchikel community is facing the challenge of not having access to good quality and safe water for domestic use. The water that is supplied by the municipality for domestic use is not drinkable. Another source of water that the community relies on for domestic use is the river which also has polluted water. In the meantime, assistance is needed for water quality assessments and monitoring as well as water purification so that the community can have access to safe drinking water.

Need for assistance to identify more efficient ways (for example, through the use of new technologies) to find unknown water resources within the forest and also be able to determine soil and water quality. This will have the community to have access to safe drinking water.

We do not have long term studies on how land-use and water sources have changed within the Ëyuujk community. There is less water in my community but is not a dire situation as yet and we do not want to get to a point where there is no more water because we are destroying the forest, or we are not valuing the natural resources before it is too late. We would like to make a historical reconstruction on how the land cover was before and to predict the river levels or water that remains available in some of the sources. This can be linked with a geographic study too because a lot of these sources have a meaning for religious purposes in the community.