José Bastante

Translation in English

In the Lake Titicaca basin, agriculture coexists with droughts, floods, and frosts; moreover, it has been noted that the rainy season is increasingly late and concentrated, which heightens the risk of crop loss (Rodríguez et al., n.d.). In this context, waru waru (raised cultivation platforms separated by channels for storing and circulating water) constitute a sustainability solution: a technological and social response, consolidated over millennia of observation and experimentation (Erickson, 1996), that integrates water, soil, and agrobiodiversity to mitigate climate risks and sustain the permanence of communities in their territory. Their continued relevance aligns with the 2030 Agenda (SDGs) and with UNESCO’s approach to living heritage and cultural landscapes, as they combine climate adaptation, food security, and territorial identity.

Their most significant contribution in the face of the climate crisis is microclimate regulation. Experimental evidence shows that, during critical nights, waru waru maintain higher temperatures than plots on the pampa, which confirms the thermoregulating principle of the design and therefore reduces frost damage (Lhomme & Vacher, 2003). During droughts, moisture from the channels can rise by capillary action toward the roots, and during floods, the furrows drain excess runoff (Altieri, 1996). Science adds useful tools without replacing communal logic; along these lines, a mathematical model formalizes the role of channeled water as thermal storage and its capacity to sustain more favorable nighttime conditions for crops (Mírez Tarrillo, 2025). Such results are crucial, given that increasing thermal variability and the intensification of extreme cold events (even in a warming climate) can cause severe losses in high-altitude rainfed systems. In terms of sustainability, this amounts to an adaptation strategy with low external dependence, based on solar radiation, water, and a thorough understanding of the local geomorphology.

This set of advantages is crucial, considering that greater productivity under climate stress can translate into food security, reduced economic vulnerability, and a greater capacity for families to sustain themselves without leaving their territory. These features illustrate a logic of diverse services that include production, local water regulation, and nutrient cycling. Likewise, the channels can support the management of aquatic biota, including the farming of native fish and the use of vegetation such as totora and llachu (Erickson, 1986). In this way, as a landscape technology, waru waru work properly when they are maintained continuously.

However, the sustainability of the system depends on its material and sociocultural continuity. A recent assessment warns that the area cultivated with waru waru has shrunk by 95% in recent decades and that only 0.56% remains in good condition, owing to migration, agricultural modernization, high labor costs, and physical degradation (Sardon Nina et al., 2024). This figure highlights the need for a comprehensive approach. In terms of sustainability, such an approach must simultaneously ensure ecological viability (water and soils), social viability (communal governance and knowledge transmission), and economic viability (income and fair prices), so that infrastructure, organization, and benefits reinforce one another. Along these lines, it must allow for physical restoration (channels, platforms, drainage), the active preservation and intergenerational transmission of the ancestral knowledge of local communities (agricultural calendars, maintenance, signs and señaleros, management of native seeds, communal rules and management of work), and the creation of economic conditions that prevent abandonment. This includes differentiated marketing mechanisms for produce from the waru waru (native potatoes, quinoas, cañihuas, fava beans, and other high Andean crops managed with rotation criteria), aimed at high-value gastronomic markets through direct purchases at a fair price. The goal is to give visibility to the communities and strengthen their incomes, so that maintaining the system is sustainable. Within this framework, the World Monuments Fund (WMF)’s “Proyecto Waru Waru Campos de Ácora,” with community participation and institutional partners (such as the Asociación Aymara Suma Yapu and the Ministry of Culture), is currently evaluating this pathway together with MATER Iniciativa and the International Potato Center, in order to ensure the quality, traceability, and cultural value of the product.

By giving ancestral knowledge the importance it deserves, waru waru become an ethical and replicable solution that combines climate adaptation with identity, local governance, and technological memory. When knowledge is interrupted, the system gradually degrades, whereas when it is transmitted, the system becomes a practical school of sustainability, because it teaches how to manage water, soil, and agrobiodiversity through communal rules, seasonal rhythms, and in Indigenous languages. By the same logic, sustainability requires that the maintenance effort be socially and economically viable, so that intergenerational transmission and infrastructure depend not on temporary incentives but on stable benefits for the communities.

Finally, the value of waru waru lies in showing that sustainability is grounded in the articulation of ecology, technology, and culture in order to sustain life under changing conditions and reinforce communal identity, depending as much on their material side as on the social continuity of the knowledge that maintains them. Recovering and preserving them means recognizing them both as climate resilience infrastructure and as living heritage, including the ancestral knowledge that makes it possible to define concrete criteria for confronting climate crises through solutions in harmony with nature and the territory.

Bibliography

Altieri, M. A. (1996). Indigenous knowledge re-valued in Andean agriculture. ILEIA Newsletter, 12(1), 7.

Erickson, C. L. (1986). Waru-waru: Una tecnología agrícola del altiplano prehispánico. In C. de la Torre & M. Burga (Eds.), Andenes y camellones en el Perú andino: Historia, presente y futuro (pp. 59–84). CONCYTEC.

Erickson, C. L. (1988). Raised field agriculture in the Lake Titicaca basin: Putting ancient agriculture back to work. Expedition, 30(1), 8–16.

Erickson, C. L. (1996). Investigación arqueológica del sistema agrícola de los camellones en la cuenca del Lago Titicaca del Perú. PIWA / Centro de Información para el Desarrollo (CID).

Lhomme, J.-P., & Vacher, J.-J. (2003). La Mitigación de heladas en los camellones del altiplano andino. Bulletin de l’Institut français d’études andines, 32(2), 377–399. https://doi.org/10.4000/bifea.6556

Mírez Tarrillo, J. L. (2025). Sustainable thermal energy storage systems: A mathematical model of the “Waru-Waru” agricultural technique used in cold environments. Energies, 18, 3116. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18123116

Rodríguez Benavides, H., Villena Soria, J., Ordóñez Colque, S., & Fernández Valdivia, M. (n.d.). Los waru waru, una alternativa tecnológica para la agricultura sostenible en Puno, Perú (Estudio de caso premiado). PIWANDES / Instituto de Innovación Tecnológica y Promoción del Desarrollo.

Sardon Nina, S., Loaiza-Usuga, J. C., Varga, D., & Pari Morales, Y. (2024). Characterization of the “Waru Waru” soils on the Peruvian high plateau. Soil Science Annual, 75(1), 184338. https://doi.org/10.37501/soilsa/184338