Valoración integral de los servicios ecosistémicos asociados al turismo sostenible en la parte baja de la quebrada Guaicaramo, ubicada en el municipio de Barranca de Upía

Abstract

The growing demand for ecosystems implies a global environmental problem due to its disproportionate deterioration, being necessary to advance actions that allow their conservation taking into account not only monetary. For this reason, the present investigation aims to value the ecosystem services (E.S) associated with tourism in the Guaicaramo Creek located in the municipality of Barranca de Upía, taking into account the ecological, social and economic dimensions, in order to offer a basic tool for decision making associated with low environmental impact tourism development.

From the ecological assessment, the presence or absence of E.S. was defined through a checklist of E.S. adapted from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), identifying that the ecosystem offers 23 E.S.; then the E.S.E associated to tourism were characterized through inventories of flora and avifauna determining that from the families of plants indicators the area presents high richness and diversity of species with potential for timber, medicinal and ornamental use; also, 37 birds belonging to 17 families and 33 genera were registered; later, the benefits of the thermal water in the health were identified by means of its physicochemical properties, demonstrating that this type of mesothermal water is sulphated and presents multiple benefits to the health through hot baths and drinks. For the social assessment, the methodology of the hierarchical analytical process (AHP) was applied to evaluate the perception of the E.S by the five categories of key actors; being hierarchized as follows, habitat provision; recreation and ecotourism; ornamental resources; food and natural medicines. Finally, in the economic assessment, a market study was carried out through a survey of potential tourists, in order to establish an approximation of the economic potential of each of the projected activities (ecological walks, bird watching, rafting and horseback riding) through the regression model and descriptive statistics.