SGER: Calibrating the Dynamism of Vulnerability in the Western Amazon

西亚马逊流域在2005年末经历了历史最低水位。再加上当地降水减少，这些紧急气候环境给生计和生态系统带来了独特的压力。这项研究的目的是利用这种前所未有的极端天气与自然和人为干扰的融合，在亚马逊西部的低水位和上升水位期间收集现场数据。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联系在一起的空间明确信息：关于低水位暴露的地表范围和土地覆盖的位置（GPS）数据，以及对水特征的实地测量。如果水位在接下来的几个月里没有上升，那将是令人惊讶的。如果是这样，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来评估对极端基线的看法和反应，以应对亚马逊最潮湿和最淹水的环境。我们认为这是在城市化和全球化的压力下，在周期性的环境机制下，对不寻常事件的社会经济反应进行分类和校准的一种方式。本研究涉及四个研究主题：1)调查火灾干扰的潜力和干扰机制（从洪水到火灾）作为景观变化的新媒介的可能变化（特别是在生态和经济上至关重要的棕榈沼泽中）；2)确定历史极端气候和低水位洪水阶段对人口和景观的影响程度；3)建立基于河流的生态梯度基线测量，包括泥沙流量、黑水/白水切换点和生态资源可利用性/提取；4)考虑到目前正在改变该地区及其居民的紧急情况，探讨未来长期/历史研究是否有必要评估该地区自然-人类耦合系统的动态和活力。这项工作将解决两个直接而重要的社会影响：1)该地区的人口/文化群体将获得难得的机会，自我定义与这些快速变化的洪水和降水水平相关的脆弱性水平和类型；2)这项工作将为合作伙伴IIAP（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，这些社区最需要当地干预，以应对极端气候事件及其影响导致的营养、生计或其他短缺。

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.