Sewage Waste on San Cristobal Island: It's Not Just a Numbers Game
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 26, 2019
- Creator
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Steel, Shannon
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Geography
- Abstract
- The purpose of this research is to examine the dynamic relationship between the growing human presence and the availability and functionality of wastewater infrastructure in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. The basic intent is to describe how both components of this relationship impact a sewage network’s management of fecal contaminants from entering domestic water supplies and the marine environment. Primary data have been collected from San Cristobal Island in the Galapagos Islands. Chapter 1 describes geographic, political, and social characteristics of the Galapagos that make it important and difficult to adequately manage the wastewater produced in the Islands. Chapter 2 provides an overview of scholarly and non-scholarly discourses regarding the causes of human-related environmental impacts in the Galapagos Islands. This thesis supports the notion, common among scholarly discourse, that environmental impacts in the Galapagos are not simply due to residential population increase, tourism growth, and lack of population control. Rather, the magnitude of these environmental impacts occurs from the implementation and management of public services like recycling and trash collection and the maintenance of infrastructure such as the San Cristobal sewage system. Chapter 3 includes a description of the primary data collection methodology and the figures created using this primary data. Chapter 4 provides a discussion of anecdotal evidence and information from the figures to describe how the data suggests possible deficiencies in the maintenance and functionality of the sewage network system of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristobal Island. Chapter 4 also promotes the notion that the apparent leakage of sewage residuals into coastal marine areas and the possible contamination of the domestic water supply through cross-contamination of pipelines is not only a product of a growing human population on San Cristobal; it is also the result of the limited governance, maintenance, and functional consistency of sewage-related infrastructure
- Date of publication
- spring 2014
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: VIMY Global Team Award
- Advisor
- Walsh, Stephen J.
- Degree
- Bachelor of Arts
- Honors level
- Highest Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Extent
- 80
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