Echinopsis chiloensis (Colla) Friedr. et Rowl., Fam. Cactaceae, corresponde a un cacto columnar que se distribuye entre la IV y la VII Región, Chile, siendo su hábitat preferente las laderas ecuatoriales de la Cordillera de la Costa y de la Cordillera de los Andes en las zonas del matorral esclerófilo de Chile Central. La explotación indiscriminada en la producción de los palos de agua ha llevado a esta especie a disminuir drásticamente su densidad y cobertura relativa en las comunidades naturales donde crece, ya que para fabricar este instrumento musical artesanal es necesario cortar la planta en la base de los tallos. Estudios realizados en la localidad de Til-Til, Región Metropolitana (área no protegida) dan cuenta que el 75% del total de individuos contabilizados en 1.000 m2, muestran síntomas directos de la intervención humana. Asimismo, estadísticas de exportación revelan que en 1997 se exportaron alrededor de 206.000 kilos del mencionado producto. El objetivo de este trabajo es demostrar el impacto de la extracción de este recurso con fin de detectar la magnitud del problema de conservación de esta especie y hacer un llamado de conciencia a las autoridades responsables de estas exportaciones

The Ica area of south-eastern Peru has evolved rapidly since the late 1990s into the most advanced agricultural development in the country. The intensive use of waterwells for year-round irrigation, primarily of asparagus, is the basis for an export industry worth about US$ 6,000 M/a, but one which is threatened by serious groundwater sustainability concerns. The public water-resource administration and private agricultural developers are beginning to confront the problem, which has already had a significant social cost, through developing measures to improve the groundwater balance whilst assuring agricultural production. This report presents the long-term evolution of land management and groundwater use in the area, and considers the feasibility of applying an adaptive and integrated water resources management (IWRM) approach to the system, with particular attention to managed aquifer recharge techniques.

Permafrost in Arctic watersheds limits soil biological activity to a thin, seasonally thawed active layer that contributes water to streams. In many hillslopes, relatively wet drainage features called water tracks have distinct freeze-thaw patterns that affect groundwater flow and storage, and thus the export of heat and solutes to Arctic streams. This study uses groundwater flow and energy transport models to examine potential controls on the timing and duration of freeze–thaw conditions and the magnitude of temperature fluctuations within water tracks and their adjacent hillslopes. The simulated length of the active-layer thaw season varies by 1 month over the range of snow-cover and mean annual air-temperature scenarios simulated. The timing and duration of freezing is particularly sensitive to depth and duration of snow cover. Thus, the deeper snowpack covers that can accumulate in water tracks contribute to their more persistent thaw conditions and their ability to conduct groundwater downslope. A three-dimensional simulation shows that during the summer thaw season, the water track captures groundwater laterally from half way across the hillslope. The models presented here elucidate key mechanisms driving small-scale variation in the active-layer thermal regime of tundra hillslopes, which may be responsible for changes in drainage-network geometry and Arctic biogeochemical fluxes under a warming climate.