SGER: Calibrating the Dynamism of Vulnerability in the Western Amazon

亚马逊西部的河水水位在2005年底经历了创纪录的低点。再加上当地降雨量减少，这些紧迫的气候环境给生计和生态系统带来了独特的压力。这项研究旨在利用这种史无前例的极端天气与自然和人为干扰的交汇，在亚马逊西部水位低和上升时收集现场数据。这项研究将在秘鲁亚马逊西北部的伊基托斯市进行。目标是获取可与卫星图像相联系的空间上明确的信息：关于低水位暴露的地表范围和土地覆盖的全球定位系统(GPS)数据，并辅之以对水特征的实地测量。如果水位在接下来的几个月里不上升，那将是令人惊讶的。如果是这样的话，测量的生物物理参数将记录正常洪水周期的回归。如果没有，那么这将是一个在现场测量极端事件的机会。我们还将通过个人、村庄或社区负责人以及焦点小组访谈，评估人们对亚马逊地区最潮湿和最洪水环境中典型的生计反应极端基线的看法和反应。我们认为这是一种在周期性环境制度下对异常事件的社会经济反应进行分类和校准的方法，周期性环境制度也受到城市化和全球化力量的压力。这项研究涉及四个研究主题：1)调查火灾干扰的可能性和作为景观变化的新动因(特别是在生态和经济关键的棕榈滩)的干扰制度的可能变化；2)确定历史极端气候和低洪水阶段对人口和景观影响的程度；3)建立以河流为基础的生态梯度的基线测量，包括泥沙流量、黑水/白水转换点和潜在的资源可获得性/开采量；以及4)鉴于该地区及其居民正在发生变化的紧急情况，探讨是否有必要进行未来较长期的/历史研究，以评估该地区自然-人类耦合系统的动态和动态。这项工作将解决两个直接和重要的社会影响：1)该地区的人口/文化群体将获得难得的机会，自行确定与这些快速变化的洪水和降水水平有关的脆弱程度(S)和脆弱类型(S)；2)这项工作将为国际分类研究所(秘鲁亚马逊研究所)和任何其他感兴趣的政府机构/非政府组织提供初步评估，评估最需要地方干预的分类社区，以帮助应对极端气候事件及其影响造成的营养、生计或其他方面的短缺。

The Western Amazon has experienced record lows in riverlevels late 2005. Coupled with reduced local precipitation, these exigent climatic circumstances are putting livelihoods and ecosystems under unique stresses. This research is designed to permit field data collection during low and rising water levels in the western Amazon, taking advantage of this unprecedented confluence of extreme weather with natural and anthropogenic disturbances. The research will take place in the city of Iquitos in the northwest Peruvian Amazon. The goal is to acquire spatially explicit information that can be tied to satellite imagery: locational (GPS) data on the extents and land cover of land surfaces exposed by the low water levels, accompanied by field measures of water characteristics. It would be surprising if water levels do not rise over the next several months. If so, the biophysical parameters measured will record the return of a normal flood cycle. If not, then this will be an opportunity to measure in the field an extreme event. We also will evaluate through individual, village or community head, and focus group interviews the perceptions of and reactions to an extreme baseline for livelihood responses to what is typically among the Amazon's wettest and most flooded environments. We view this as a way to bracket and calibrate socio-economic responses to unusual events within a cyclical environmental regime that is also under pressure from the forces of urbanization and globalization.Four research themes are addressed by this research: 1) investigating the potential of fire disturbance and possible changing of disturbance regimes (from flooding to fire) as new agents of landscape change, (particularly in the ecologically and economically critical palm swamps); 2) ascertaining magnitude of both population and landscape impacts of historically extreme climatic and low water flooding stages; 3) establishing baseline measurements of riverine-based ecological gradients, including sediment flow, black water/white water switch points, and lentic resource ailability/extraction; and 4) probing whether future longer term / historical study is warranted for assessing dynamics and dynamism of the area's coupled natural-human system given the exigent circumstances now transforming the region and its inhabitants. Two immediate and vital societal impacts will be addressed by this work 1) the area's population/culture groups will be given the uncommon opportunity to self-define their level(s) and type(s) of vulnerability associated with these rapidly changing flood and precipitation levels; and 2) this work will provide to partner IIAP (Peruvian Amazon Research Institute) and any other interested government agencies / NGOs a preliminary assessment of triage communities in most need of local intervention for assistance in responding to nutritional, livelihood, or other shortfalls due to extreme climatic events and their repercussions.