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Socio-ecological transformations within the Mayan area of Yucatan, Mexico: Past and present of a water oriented complex society

This research deals with the extensive environmental problems with groundwater resources in Yucatan, Mexico, and some of the ways to cope with these issues. The problems we are referring to are associated to a particular case study in the Mayan area of Yucatan. In this place, where groundwater is the only source of freshwater, the inhabitants have to deal with water problems such as resource scarcity, groundwater pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource degradation. Further, it revealed that one way to improve conservation is to ensure the inclusion of cultural values between people and their environment and this is of significance for evolving strong relations with nature. We examined socio-ecological groundwater relations in contemporary Mayan society by analysing how the ancient Maya obtained freshwater, and how and why contemporary local Mayan communities of Yucatan, Mexico, have transformed the groundwater system by intensify groundwater pollution problems. Several authors have attempted to improve the understanding of complex processes underlying the Maya collapse, and the interactions of this society with nature. But, if the demise of the Mayan populations in the past was the result of complex social and ecological factors, then what are those relations, at present, and how they are conceptualized? What kind of government regulation is necessary, and how can communities make decisions to ensure solutions for conservation, at a time when cultural values, worldviews and traditional practices are being lost? To answer those questions, we review the background to the groundwater problem, and the historical and cultural context of Yucatan groundwater system. We use the Mayan society as a case study to elucidate this and of the induced collapse, exacerbated by the overuse of natural resources in a non- sustainable way. Nevertheless, a very complex traditional ecological knowledge and general worldview of the use of natural resources in Yucatan have significantly shaped the socio-environmental conditions in the region, in particular freshwater resources.