Biocomplexity of Hydrological Service Payments and Watershed Sustainability in Mexico

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OISE-0902019PI: Heidi AsbjornsenThis U.S.-Mexico Planning Visit Proposal will establish the collaborative linkages and experimental design for research on the biocomplexity of Mexico?s Payments for Hydrological Services (PHS) programs and the implications for watershed sustainability. A key goal of the planning visit is to develop collaborations between researchers from multiple U.S. and Mexican research institutions, including Iowa State University, Institute of Ecology in Veracruz, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Auburn University, Michigan Technological University, and SENDAS, a Mexican NGO. The U.S. team will include seven U.S. researchers and two U.S. graduate students. The host for the planning visit is Dr. Robert Manson from the Institute of Ecology, in Xalapa, Mexico. The international team will develop interdisciplinary research focused on the following two central objectives:1. To quantify the effects of PHS policies on potential key indicators of watershed sustainability for each dimension of coupled social-ecological systems for replicated watersheds located in three contrasting geographic-cultural regions in Mexico.2. To develop a sustainability index for assessing the aggregate impact of PHS policies on coupled social-ecological systems across the study watersheds.The results of research developed from this planning visit may contribute significantly to the fundamental knowledge of how economic incentives targeting hydrological services are coupled to human actions to directly influence watershed sustainability and quality of life. The development and testing of aggregated watershed sustainability indices will be particularly valuable in linking science with policy and thus will likely have broad impacts through applications in the improvement and design of future PHS programs. Other important broad impacts include the strengthening of international collaboration between U.S. and Mexico and the training of students in interdisciplinary-international research. This award is jointly funded by the Division of Environmental Biology and the Office of International Science and Engineering of the National Science Foundation.