In Guatemala and Central America, it is urgent to move from reaction to anticipation: education from school, tariffs that reflect the real value of the resource, and a civic culture that understands that every drop lost—whether in the Canal or in our pipes—is a drop that does not return to the social cycle. The problem of water management is not just a legal one. Today, I analyze the lessons that emerge from water management in Panama for Central America. First lesson: watersheds are the strategic asset, not an accessory. Panama understood this decades ago. In Panama, it is not the case. The Canal Authority promotes integrated water resource management projects, such as identifying the Indio River as a strategic element, initiatives like 'Water for the Future,' and the development of watershed committees. If Panama prioritizes its watersheds because 6% of world trade depends on them, why don't we prioritize our own, which our food, energy, and urban sovereignty depend on? Second lesson: governance must be operational, not just legal. As Luis Credidío reminded in La Prensa, Panama has a legal framework and national plans. In Guatemala, we are still discussing the Water Law while institutional contradictions and pollution advance. Panama shows that engineering must be social: efficient and humble before the cycle it itself modified. Fourth lesson: climate change demands collective awareness, not just plans. The distortion of believing that 'it always rains' or 'there is always water' already cost Panama in 2023. The lesson is clear: a law is necessary, but useless if it does not create an autonomous entity, with a budget, and with real power of coordination watershed by watershed. Third lesson: technology with nature, never against nature. Panama not only built new locks; it also invested in water-saving basins, cross-lockages, and leak control. It takes the will to care for the resource and the capacity to understand the social cycle of water: hydrogeology, hydrology, and the ways in which societies have used—and abused—water. This week, I traveled again through the Panama Canal watershed, from Miraflores on the Pacific to the Atlantic. But it never forgot that the true reserve is in the forests of the upper watersheds. The ACP, the Ministry of the Environment, and local communities have advanced in watershed committees that work because water does not understand acronyms. The country responded with necessary restrictions and a National Drought Plan. It proposes new reservoirs and controlled extraction of groundwater, with an economic valuation that recognizes that water for human consumption and ecosystems is no less valuable than the one that moves ships. I walked through the Chilibre dam and then traveled to the Atlantic locks, where the cable-stayed bridge in Colon stands, connecting the lower coast with the upper coast. In Guatemala, they still think about large dams without first taking care of recharge. Reforestation led by organizations like Natura has managed, in the last ten years, to recover more forest than is lost. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) not only operates locks; it administers 51 of the country's 52 watersheds with an integrated approach. It is time to rethink our relationship with this resource if we want to guarantee water for the future. The author is a chemical engineer with a specialization in mathematics. Imagine the Guatemalan reader if that were possible, where we lose 132,000 hectares per year. What is missing is real coordination between institutions. It is a social and educational problem. Although INAB reports the recovery of 47,000 hectares annually, in reality, almost 100,000 hectares are lost every year. He currently directs the Institute of Engineering Research at the University of San Carlos in Quetzaltenango.
