ESDA method and illicit drug trafficking: contributions from engineering to a problem that transcends frontiers

Fabio Héctor Echeverry Andrade, PhD student in Marine Management and Conservation at the University of Cádiz. Credit: Communications Office, Faculty of Engineering.

Almost half of Colombia's territory is bordered by water sources, whether sea or ocean. This characteristic is exploited by illegal groups for illicit drug trafficking, among other activities. One study proposes to use geographic location methods to estimate the location of the places most prone to suffer from these dynamics. Its results are expected to contribute to the formulation of public policies that integrate these characteristics of the national territory in order to reduce the impact of these activities in the region. 

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The importance of establishing a course of action for a transnational issue 

Due to the considerable maritime extension that comprises the Colombian territory, which according to the Agustin Codazzi Institute is 928,660Km2 of the 2,070,408Km2 of the total surface, it has become increasingly important to conduct studies on regulations and legislation that address a cross-cutting understanding of one of the most complex problems of recent years, both in the national territory and internationally: illicit drug trafficking.  

Aware of this need, and motivated by his experience in land management, public policies and urban regulations, in addition to his passion for the sea and the activities that take place on its coasts, Fabio Héctor Echeverry Andrade, a graduate engineer from the Surveying Engineering program at the Universidad del Valle, embarked on a doctoral thesis which links aspects related to international law and geographic information systems with spatial analysis.  

This research, which is part of the PhD in Management and Conservation of the Sea of the University of Cadiz, is directed by Miguel Angel Acosta Sánchez, professor and researcher at the University of Cadiz, and co-directed by Ciro Jaramillo Molina, professor and researcher at the School of Civil Engineering and Geomatics of the Universidad del Valle. Its first results were published in the Journal of Maritime Research and show the use of engineering tools with the purpose of generating broader analyses of a problem whose consequences are experienced by countries in this and other continents of the planet. 

Research. ESDA method applied to illicit drug trafficking 

Although researcher Echeverry Andrade had initially proposed a different line of research, which focused on the different maritime threats in Colombia related to human trafficking, after coming into contact with members of CIMCON, of the Colombian Navy, an institution that had data on seizures of illicit drugs, he decided to follow this path, because such information allowed him to have more elements to conduct a much more robust analysis in this area.  

For professor and researcher Ciro Jaramillo Molina, this project sought to establish spatial or territorial associations of events related to this type of traffic in the maritime area, since there was great potential when it came to managing existing spatial information and using it to perform autocorrelation analyses (associations that allow identifying the places where it is more likely that an event will occur in relation to another). "This seems very interesting to me because, generally, studies with descriptive statistics and conventional statistics do not involve the spatial variable, but have spatial units and variables in those units and then you see if they can be related," he says.  

Compared to this traditional method, the work carried out by researcher Fabio Héctor Echeverry Andrade went further: it allowed him to establish the existence of neighborhoods in these spaces, to determine which places (departments and countries) were bordering these zones, which allowed him to locate clusters (hot spots), an innovative aspect in his field of analysis. 

For this analysis, the Colombian port captaincies and maritime departments were taken into account, located as follows: in the Pacific Ocean, 4 port captaincies (in Tumaco, Guapi, Buenaventura and Bahía Solano), and 4 maritime departments (Nariño, Cauca, Valle del Cauca and Chocó); in the Atlantic Ocean, 9 port captaincies (Turbo, Coveñas, San Andrés, Providencia, Cartagena, Barranquilla, Santa Marta, Riohacha and Puerto Bolívar) and 8 maritime departments (Antioquia, Córdoba, Sucre, Bolívar, Magdalena, Atlántico, San Andrés - Providencia and La Guajira). In addition to this, international treaties with countries such as Costa Rica, Haiti, Honduras, Panama and the United States were also taken into account, in which the delimitations and sovereignty of the national territory with respect to others were made clear.  

The information obtained at these sites was evaluated through Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA).

"We wanted to determine which department was most affected by these seizures. And if neighboring departments had that relationship," says researcher Echeverry Andrade, adding that for this they correlated the seizure variable with the seizure itself. Morán's statistical analysis I was also applied, with the objective of correlating both maritime and land seizures, seeking to analyze whether what happened on land with respect to illicit drug trafficking had its correspondence at sea.  

At this point in the investigation, therefore, three analyses were used: one to correlate the variable itself (univariate), to observe how it behaved in seizures made at sea; one of two variables (bivariate), to observe how seizures in the interior of the departments behaved with those of their maritime departures. And a last one (multivariate), to observe this behavior depending on the type of drug that had been seized, among which were marijuana, cocaine and heroin.  

"We were able to determine, from these univariate and multivariate analyses, some threat zones, and with these threat zones what we did was to estimate both the square kilometers of affectation and the nautical miles. We also established threat ranges in order to identify the most threatened areas and be able to propose strategies, either at the national level or even at the local and departmental levels, to confront these illicit activities," says researcher Fabio Héctor Echeverry Andrade. The threat levels were as follows: mitigable, low, medium, high and critical. 

Results obtained and their contribution to the generation of public policies 

After crossing 586 seizures geo-referenced in the port captaincies, the following results were obtained: in the Atlantic Ocean there were a total of 209 seizures (35.67%), with Antioquia being the most affected maritime department. And, in the Pacific Ocean, there were an estimated 353 seizures (60.24%), with Nariño being the most affected maritime department.  

With respect to the threat ranges proposed by the researcher Echeverry Andrade, the mitigable threat level is 53.55%, low threat level is 33.32%, medium threat level is 7.88%, high threat level is 2.84% and critical threat level is 2.39%.   

According to the researcher, these conclusions are linked to the desire to interpret the threat hotspots found, both in the southwest and north of Colombia, in order to use these data as the basis for a proposal to address them in those areas. "What is proposed is to improve maritime interdiction in those points, increase patrolling with the Navy, and establish focused aerial supervision in those areas," he explains. In addition to this, it is also expected to contribute to the improvement of existing international agreements (for example, with the United States), to generate better response capabilities in the face of this problem. 

This desire is shared by Ciro Jaramillo Molina, professor and researcher at the School of Civil Engineering and Geomatics of the Universidad del Valle: "what is sought is, through this work, to identify an agenda, methodology, guide or direction manual where Colombian policy can focus on establishing or strengthening those agreements that will turn Colombia into a sustainable bioceanic power, which is one of the lines of the nation's Development Plan". 

Ciro Jaramillo Molina, professor, researcher at the School of Civil Engineering and Geomatics and co-director of the doctoral research. Credit: Édgar Bejarano, Communications Office, Faculty of Engineering.

The future impact of this research 

For professor and researcher Ciro Jaramillo Molina, having put engineering knowledge in this field is a novel bet, because, although the problem derived from illicit drug trafficking has been addressed by other perspectives within the social sciences, it is not common that bets of this type are presented. This, in addition to the fact that researcher Echeverry Andrade's research has proposed to address a cross-border aspect. "That seems to me to be a very important contribution," he says. 

This research, whose initial results focused on identifying the areas most affected by illicit drug trafficking, led to the development of a road map to mitigate its impact. Thanks to the exhaustive review in the area of the laws of the agreements that Colombia has entered into with other countries on maritime matters, researcher Fabio Héctor Echeverry Andrade has subsequently embarked on an analysis of this problem in order to propose a starting point through what has been agreed in such agreements.  

"I hope it will really contribute to develop a policy or a strategy in Colombia, to create a comprehensive maritime security index for the country. The Navy proposes to build or elaborate a maritime security strategy by 2030 and, precisely, my proposal was to analyze all these problems in order to propose this policy against illicit maritime drug trafficking in Colombia," says researcher Echeverry Andrade.

If interested in being in touch with the researcher or any further information about the investigation, please write the Faculty of Engineering Communications Office: comunicaingenieria@correounivalle.edu.co.