Dr. María Cecilia Roa García

Research interests: issues of environment and development in Latin America, specifically water in the context of global change.

Biography: Cecilia was a member of POWG from 2011 to 2013 when she was undertaking her post-doctoral research at UBC on equity, efficiency and sustainability of water policies in the Andes. With an inter-disciplinary background, BSc in Industrial Engineering (Universidad Javeriana), a MSc in Development Studies (London School of Economics) and a PhD in Resource Management, Environment and Sustainability (University of British Columbia) she uses participatory approaches to involve rural communities in research for development projects, and combines biophysical and social sciences to understand local issues. She has led and co-led research on community management of watershed resources in Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Honduras and Nicaragua. Currently she holds a von Humboldt Foundation fellowship to conduct research at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg on the use of participatory mechanisms to improve environmental democracy.

Publications:

Roa-García, M.C., Pulido-Rozo, A., 2014. The challenge of urban-rural equity in water access for domestic use in Colombia. Journal of Environment and Sustainability, forthcoming. (In Spanish)

Roa-García, M.C. 2014. Equity, efficiency and scale in water allocation: trade-offs in a full world. Water Alternatives 7(2):298-319.

Roa-García, M.C., Urteaga-Crovetto, P., Bustamante-Centeno, R., 2013. Water laws in the Andes: a promising precedent for challenging neoliberalism. Geoforum, in press.

Roa-García, M.C., Brown, S., Lavkulich, L. 2014. Stream closure and water allocation in the Colombian Andes. International Journal of Water, 8(2): 128-148.

Harris, L., Roa-García, M.C., 2013. Recent Waves of Water Governance: Constitutional Reform and Resistance to Neoliberalization in Latin America (1990-2012). Geoforum, 50: 20-30.

Roa-García, M.C., Brown, S., Schreier, H. and Lavkulich, L., 2011. The role of land use and soil in regulating water flow in small headwater catchments of the Andes. Water Resources Research, 47(5), 1-12.

Roa-García, M.C., Weiler, M., 2010. Combining hydrograph separation and baseflow transit time modelling to compare catchments based on their response and transit time distributions. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 14, 1537-1549.