Faculty of Engineering

Highlighted Projects

• SOS-Cuenca (basin): Sustainability of ecological and social systems in the Magdalena-Cauca basin under scenarios of climate change and forest loss.
• REDRÍO, Monitoring on the Aburrá - Medellín river, from its source in the municipality of Caldas to its mouth in the Porce river.
• Assembly of models to estimate human exposure to air pollutants. 
• Evidence4Policy: Developing the evidence-base in support of water resources management policy for sustainable agriculture development and environmental protection.

Key Research Findings

• Climate change: Professor Paola Arias of the GIGA group is the author of the latest IPCC report, and the only Colombian woman scientist to have served on this panel. She has also led national discussions in this regard, for example, on the Third National Communication on Climate Change. Two articles resulted from this, the second with broad participation of teachers and professors of GIGA:

  • Arias, P., Bellouin, N., Coppola, E., Jones, R., Krinner, G., Marotzke, J., ... & Zickfeld, K. (2021). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group14 I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Technical Summary.

  • Arias, P. A., Villegas, L. D., Mesa, O. J., Pabón, J. D., Arango, J., Arango-Aramburo, S., ... & Zuluaga, M. D. (2022). Implicaciones metodológicas e inconsistencias de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional sobre Cambio Climático de Colombia. Revista de la Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales.

• EXCHANGE and discussions on peace and environment. A few years ago, the GIGA led, alongside EAFIT and Purdue University, the realization of the EXCHANGE event that has led to multiple collaborations, including discussions on the peace process in Colombia and the environmental implications. Three articles resulted from this, as well as a wide participation of teachers and professors of GIGA which have received attention from the national and international press:

  • Salazar, A., Sanchez, A., Villegas, J. C., Salazar, J. F., Ruiz Carrascal, D., Sitch, S., ... & Dukes, J. S. (2018). The ecology of peace: preparing Colombia for new political and planetary climates. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 16(9), 525-531.

  • Salazar, A., Salazar, J. F., Sánchez-Pacheco, S. J., Sanchez, A., Lasso, E., Villegas, J. C., ... & Dukes, J. S. (2021). Undermining Colombia's peace and environment. Science, 373(6552), 289-290.

  • Salazar, A., Sanchez, A., Dukes, J. S., Salazar, J. F., Clerici, N., Lasso, E., ... & Arias, P. A. (2022). Peace and the environment at the crossroads: Elections in a conflict-troubled biodiversity hotspot. Environmental Science & Policy, 135, 77-85.

• The results of the Evidence4Policy Project (Follow the links), and two articles led by the GIGA group:

  • https://www.un-ihe.org/projects/evidence4policy-developing-evidence-base-support-water-resources-management-policy

  • https://sites.google.com/view/e4p-colombia/inicio

  • Bolaños Chavarría, S., Werner, M., Salazar, J. F., Betancur, T. (2022). Benchmarking global hydrological and land surface models against GRACE in a medium-sized tropical basin. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 26(16), 4323-4344.

  • Bolaños, S., Salazar, J. F., Betancur, T., & Werner, M. (2021). GRACE reveals depletion of water storage in northwestern South America between ENSO extremes. Journal of Hydrology, 596, 125687.

• The results of the REDRÍO project: See: https://www.metropol.gov.co/ambiental/Paginas/RedRio.aspx

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