INTEC investigates causes of overflow of Lake Enriquillo
An international team of four researchers, led by the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC), will dedicate three years to determine the causes of the increase in the level of the waters of Lake Enriquillo, the largest in the Caribbean area, with a variable surface area of approximately 265 square kilometers, whose overflow has caused millions of crop losses in the Southwest of the Dominican Republic.
The research proposal of Ricardo González, PhD, and Domingo Rafael Brito, MSc, both of INTEC, Dr. Juan B. Marco Segura of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) and Dr. Jorge E. González Cruz, of the Department of Engineering Mechanics at the City College of New York was one of the five INTEC research projects that received funding for RD $ 36.5 million from the National Fund for Technological Scientific Innovation and Development (FONDOCyT). From this global amount, RD $ 7,502,600 was assigned to the hydrogeological study of the lake area, which will approach the problem with an engineering approach to establish the interventions required to control the overflow.
The funds received by INTEC will be allocated to research related to problems of national development, natural resources and technology, according to Miguel Escala, rector of the institution. "For the university it is very important that for the fifth consecutive year our research proposals have qualified and that motivates us to continue in this line, to seek solutions to problems related to the quality of life of the national population. We are also the only private university that allocates its own funds to research and proof of this is the current call for projects of academics, graduates and graduates of INTEC that closes the May 14".
Recently the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (MESCyT) presented the winning projects of scientific research and innovation), according to the 2009 Convocation, in which INTEC was the university with the most projects approved after the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD).
The other research funded by FONDOCyT for INTEC includes genetic studies of the two endemic species of iguanas, nanostructures for rechargeable batteries, a computational study to design a bactericide against the Huanglongbing pathogen (a serious threat to citrus fruits that causes greening or "greening"). "). There is also the development of a system of environmental tariffs to guarantee the provision of water as an environmental water service in the Yaque del Norte model forest.
Lago Enriquillo is part of the Lago Enriquillo and Isla Cabritos National Park and the Jaragua-Bahoruco-Enriquillo Biosphere Reserve. At the beginning of 2009, the press reported that its waters had flooded more than 283 a thousand tasks planted with grass, corn, bananas, cassava, bananas and sweet potatoes, according to reports from the Secretary of State for Agriculture, which indicated more affected to Neiba, Villa Jaragua, Los Rios, La Descubierta and Postrer Río.