SAVE LAKE ATITLÁN
Save Lake Atitlán by Restoring the Water Cycle
CreaSol is working with communities, landowners, and municipalities around Lake Atitlán to slow water, stop erosion, clean runoff, rebuild ecosystems, and train local watershed guardians.
WATCH THE VIDEO
What Happens to the Water We Use?
Before we talk about pollution, we need to understand how water moves through the whole watershed — and how changing that movement can help save the lake.
THE CRISIS
Lake Atitlán Is in Crisis
Every rainy season, thousands of liters of contaminated runoff rush through streets, farms, towns, and construction sites directly into the lake.
This runoff carries soil, sewage, trash, fertilizers, and nutrients that feed algae blooms.
Pollution, erosion, and broken water cycles are destroying the ecosystem.
Flooding
Rainwater moves too fast through roads, roofs, farms, and degraded land, carrying pollution directly into the lake.
Drought
Water is not soaking into the soil where it can recharge springs, feed plants, and keep the landscape alive through the dry season.
Soil Loss
Fertile topsoil is washed off hillsides, fields, and construction sites, leaving land weaker and the lake more contaminated.
Contamination
Runoff carries nutrients, sewage, trash, and chemicals into the water, feeding algae blooms and damaging the lake ecosystem.
THE ROOT CAUSE
These Are Not Separate Problems
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They are symptoms of broken water cycles.
When forests are removed, soil is degraded, roads are built without water planning, and water is treated as waste, the whole landscape begins to break down.
Water stops soaking into the land. Soil washes away. Pollution concentrates. The lake receives the damage.
If we fix water, everything else begins to recover.
OUR SOLUTION
Treat Water as Life, Not Waste
We design systems that slow, spread, sink, clean, and reuse water before it reaches the lake.
Slow the Water
Swales, terraces, vegetation barriers, and contour-based design help water move more slowly through the landscape.
Sink the Water
Healthy soil, mulch, trees, and infiltration systems allow water to recharge the land instead of running away.
Clean the Water
Constructed wetlands, biofilters, greywater gardens, and living systems help filter contamination naturally.
Regenerate the Land
Agroforestry, compost, animals, and soil-building systems restore fertility and reduce erosion.
Train Watershed Guardians
We teach people how to read land, restore water cycles, and implement these systems in real places.
ON THE GROUND
What We’re Doing Around Lake Atitlán
We are not waiting for outside rescue. We are working directly on the land with communities, landowners, municipalities, students, and volunteers.
Designing Real Projects
We create practical watershed restoration systems that can be implemented, tested, and replicated.
Working With Landowners and Municipalities
We help turn degraded spaces, runoff points, farms, and public land into living restoration sites.
Training People to Restore Land and Water Systems
We teach people how to restore soil, water, ecosystems, and communities through real-world design.
PROVEN SYSTEMS
This Work Has Already Been Proven. Now We Are Scaling It.
For years, we have been designing and implementing living systems that regenerate soil, restore water cycles, and rebuild ecosystems. Now we are applying that experience to the Lake Atitlán watershed.
We Regenerate Soil
Through compost, animals, mulch, biochar, agroforestry, and living groundcover.
We Restore Water Cycles
By slowing, spreading, sinking, filtering, and reusing water across the landscape.
We Rebuild Ecosystems
By designing systems where food, water, soil, trees, animals, and people support each other.
THE BIGGER VISION
From One Watershed to Many
Lake Atitlán is the starting point.
The goal is not only to restore one lake.
It is to develop a living model that can be applied anywhere water cycles have been broken.
A model that regenerates land, restores water, reduces contamination, trains local leaders, and creates livelihoods around ecological restoration.
If it can work here, it can inspire restoration everywhere.
THE MOVEMENT
We Are Building a Network of Watershed Guardians
To save Lake Atitlán, we need trained people in every village, farm, school, municipality, and watershed.
A Watershed Guardian understands how water moves through the landscape and knows how to help restore it. They learn to read land, slow and infiltrate water, prevent erosion, reduce contamination, rebuild soil, restore ecosystems, and mobilize their communities.
GET INVOLVED
Choose How You Want to Help Save Lake Atitlán
Whether you want to give, learn, or work directly on the land, there is a place for you in this movement.
Get Hands-on
Support the Work
Help fund materials, plants, tools, training, community workdays, and real restoration projects around the lake.
Start Free Training
Learn how to become a Watershed Guardian and build restoration projects anywhere in the world.
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
Lake Atitlán Can Be Restored
This is not a finished project.
It is an ongoing movement to restore water, rebuild ecosystems, train local leaders, and create real solutions from the ground up.
And it depends on people stepping in.
