Santo Domingo.- In yet another theory into the surprising swelling of lakes Enriquillo and nearby Azuei, researchers from City College of New York (CCNY) and the Santo Domingo Technological Institute  (Intec) concluded that it’s the result of climatic change.

Since researchers began visiting the region early this year, only one of the conclusions by one the teams took into account the rampant deforestation which was observable by tourists who went to the Enriquillo Basin in the early 1970s.

The latest study backs the theory of the late Dominican engineer Héctor Morillo Rodriguez, who in 2009 noted that the zone’s cooling temperature had reduced the evaporation process of the basin, which because it’s 40 meters below sea level, cannot drain anywhere.

And while the researchers in charge of the latest study called the Enriquillo basin’s situation complex, it doesn’t cite as a possible reason its proximity to Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, where most of the charcoal from the devastated forests of the Baoruco and Neiba mountains ends up.

“This is a zone with immense hydric deficit, which borders on the stress of hydric scarcity, there’s scant development in farming, in addition to the great extension of karts soils,” says Morillo’s report, published by the magazine Atajo.