Agua Tica
We invest in
Water Conservation
What is Tica Water?
Agua Tica is the first water fund in Costa Rica. It protects water sources in the Grande and Virilla Rivers sub-watersheds. The fund is a collaboration between civil society organizations, public institutions, and the private sector.
Our mission is to ensure water quantity and quality in our area of influence for the people that live and activities that take place there.
The Problem
The Greater Metropolitan Area confronts a rising pressure on its water resources, given its high population growth, poor urban planning, and changing land uses. Its sub-watersheds suffer the increasingly unhealthy effects of this reality which in turn oblige authorities to take action to ensure water quality and quantity.
The Solution
Based on good science, the fund joins forces with, supports, and prioritizes public-private projects in which to efficiently invest its water conservation resources.
Agua Tica uses science to prioritize investments. In the photograph, Manuel Guerrero and Luis Gamez carry out analysis of physical-chemical water samples.
What Is a Water Fund?
It is an innovative, long-term conservation model that operates in the following manner:
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Applying scientific methods, it identifies conservation needs within a specified area
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A series of investments and partners contribute technical knowledge and economic resources to a fund administered through transparent financial mechanisms — an endowment, in this case.
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These resources are invested in conservation activities in the upper and middle parts of the watershed in order to promote urban water security
We Use a Water Security Approach
The Water Security approach integrates environmental, domestic, economic, urban, and natural hazard resilience factors, ensuring ecosystem integrity.
Agua Tica Strategic Investment Areas
Our Impact
People
1.9 mill
beneficiary persons
Water
648.000 m³
replenished to nature
Landscape
750 ha
Under forest protection and regeneration schemes
Where do we work?
Agua Tica works in the Grande and Virilla Rivers sub-watersheds that together form the Grand Tarcoles River within whose watershed lives 57% of the nation’s population and also houses the nation’s industrial center. It is, moreover, the country’s most contaminated river.
All the water we will have, we have right now
National Geographic
