Aquafondo: Reviving the Amunas That Water Lima

Aquafondo, Peru's first water fund, was created in 2010 to protect the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín watersheds that supply water to metropolitan Lima and Callao. Its flagship work restores amunas — infiltration canals engineered over a thousand years ago by pre-Inca cultures to divert wet-season stream flow across porous highland slopes, recharging aquifers that resurface as dry-season springs. Working with highland communities, Aquafondo and its partners have restored 86 kilometers of amunas, enabling an estimated 15 million cubic meters of water infiltration a year — enough to help supply over 300,000 people downstream. The work has also generated temporary green jobs for more than 1,000 community members and trained hundreds more in watershed management.