Barranquilla is known as a dynamically growing city in the Colombian Caribbean. Urbanisation induces land use and land cover (LULC) changes in the city and its hinterland affecting the region’s climate and biodiversity. This paper aims to identify the trends of land use and land cover changes in the hinterland of Barranquilla corresponding to 13 municipalities in the north of the Department Atlántico. Landsat TM/ETM/OLI imagery from 1985 to 2017 was used to map and analyse the spatio-temporal development of land use and land cover changes. During the investigation period, the settlement areas grew by approximately 50% (from 103.3 to 153.6 km2), while areas with woody vegetation cover experienced dynamic changes and increased in size since 2001. Peri-urban and rural areas were characterized by highly dynamic changes, particularly regarding clearing and recovery of vegetated areas. Regression analyses were performed to identify the impact factors of detected vegetation cover changes. Computed logistic regression models included 20 independent variables, such as relief, climate, soil, proximity characteristics and socio-economic data. The results of this study may act as a basis to enable researchers and decision-makers to focus on the most important signals of systematic landscape transformations and on the conservation of ecosystems and the services they provide.

The coastal strip of the western peri-urban area of Barranquilla in the Atlántico Department (Colombia) is experiencing changes in human-environment interactions through infrastructure, residential, and tourism projects in a vulnerable landscape. In the hilly area, fragments of biodiverse tropical dry forest still exist in various states of conservation and degradation. To understand the interrelated social, economic, and ecological transformations in the area, we analyzed land use change on the local scale including the local community’s perception, because the local community is a key actor for sustainable land use. For the analysis of the interrelated social, economic, and ecological processes, we combined visual interpretation of high-resolution satellite imagery, on-site field land use mapping, and a spatial statistical analysis of the distribution of land use classes with in-depth interviews and a participatory GIS workshop, thus benefitting from the complementary methodological strengths of these approaches. The case study is the rural community of El Morro, which exhibits the typical social, economic, and ecological changes of the coastal strip of the western peri-urban area of Barranquilla. The local community perceives a continuous loss of forest area, but observations from on-site field mapping cannot confirm this linear trend. We observed a gradual replacement of traditional land uses such as smallholder agriculture, charcoal production, and cattle breeding by services for tourism, gated community projects for urban dwellers, and infrastructure projects; these spatial developments have several characteristics of rural gentrification. We conclude that the drivers of environmental degradation have changed and the degradation increased. The development projects of external companies have been rejected by the local community and have induced environmental consciousness among community members. Thus, the local community has become an advocate for sustainable land use in the study area.

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Die Regenwassernutzung zur Bewässerung von öffentlichem Grün kann mit gekoppelten blau-grün-grauen Infrastrukturen ermöglicht werden. Dazu sind nicht nur technische Fragen, sondern auch neue Akteurskooperationen und rechtliche Fragen wie Zuständigkeiten zu klären. Mithilfe einer Konstellationsanalyse zwischen Wissenschaftler/-innen und Praktiker/-innen werden neue Lösungswege für den Fall der Parkbewässerung mit Regenwasser von den Dächern angrenzender Häuser und Straßenwasser in einem Bestandsquartier erarbeitet. Die Übertragbarkeit auf andere Fälle ist durch die Verwendung eines hypothetischen Falls mit verallgemeinerbaren Setzungen gegeben.

El presente libro se basa en las presentaciones realizadas en el taller “Repensando los Cercamientos en Colombia desde un Contexto Regional y Global. El papel del Territorio, la Colonialidad y la Temporalidad”, llevado a cabo, en 2018, en la Universidad del Rosario. Los textos fueron enriquecidos por los intercambios y los debates que se dieron durante el mismo, así como por la escritura de cada uno de los capítulos en diálogo con los comentarios y las sugerencias de los editores de este volumen. Los Acuerdos de Paz constituyen un hito que marca un antes y un después, una hendidura en el tiempo histórico de las sociedades. A partir del análisis detenido de casos, actores y procesos específicos y distintivos, los capítulos que integran este libro coinciden en que el tiempo de “posacuerdo” que se abre después de la firma de los acuerdos de paz se sobreimprime a una realidad social, territorial y temporal heterogénea y desigual. Reponer analíticamente el carácter situado y, por lo mismo cambiante, del devenir del posacuerdo constituye uno de los desafíos centrales de este libro.