ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Water
Sec. Water Resource Management
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frwa.2025.1631938
This article is part of the Research TopicNature-based Solutions for Water Resilience under Climate ChangeView all articles
Water Availability in an University Campus: The Role of an Artificial Lake as a Nature-Based Solution
Provisionally accepted
Bethy Merchán-Sanmartín1,2,3*Itati Arteaga-Bravo4
Sebastián Suárez-Zamora1Ana Velásquez-Molina3Pablo Rosales-Serrano3Mijail Arias-Hidalgo3,5
Maria Jaya Montalvo1,3,6
Maribel Aguilar-Aguilar1,3Paúl Carrión-Mero1,3- 1Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, Centro de Investigación y Proyectos Aplicados a las Ciencias de la Tierra, Guayaquil, Ecuador
- 2Federal University of Pará, Geoscience Institute, Belém, Brazil
- 3Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias de la Tierra, Guayaquil, Ecuador
- 4Other
- 5Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, Centro del Agua y Desarrollo Sustentable, Guayaquil, Ecuador
- 6Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, Facultad de Ingeniería en Mecánica y Ciencias de la Producción, Guayaquil, Ecuador
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Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL) is a Higher Education Institution (HEI) located in a protected tropical dry forest that uses Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) (albarradas and artificial lakes) for water resource management and ecosystem conservation. This research aims to evaluate the water availability of an artificial lake at ESPOL through the water balance, focused on two consumption scenarios for the total or partial water provision to the campus community. The study included: i) water availability assessment; ii) criteria operationalization using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Likert scale for the location of the Drinking Water Treatment Plant (DWTP); and iii) analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) for sustainable management strategies. The lake can supply the ESPOL needs without a deficit until 2041. However, considering technical and environmental aspects, it can be extended until 2055. The area surrounding the existing elevated reservoir was defined for DWTP implementation. These strategies include availability studies, water quality, and the underground flows contribution to the lakes. This research supports the concept of living and dynamic laboratories in HEI by applying sustainable practices through NbS
Keywords: sustainable development, Circular economy, water balance, Artificial wetland, Living labs
Received: 20 May 2025; Accepted: 24 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Merchán-Sanmartín, Arteaga-Bravo, Suárez-Zamora, Velásquez-Molina, Rosales-Serrano, Arias-Hidalgo, Jaya Montalvo, Aguilar-Aguilar and Carrión-Mero. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Bethy Merchán-Sanmartín, betgumer@espol.edu.ec
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