Collaborative Research: Landsliding, land-use change, and carbon dynamics in a Central American mountainscape

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Landsliding is a complex process that influences carbon budgets in mountainscapes worldwide. This interdisciplinary project seeks to understand the relative contribution of landsliding and deforestation to land-cover change and ultimately, their role in transferring and storing organic carbon in the Sierra de Las Minas, Guatemala. Using a set of contrasting watersheds - dry and wet - this project will address three primary goals: 1) quantify the contribution of deforestation and landsliding to land-cover change, 2) examine the coupling between landslides and streams, and 3) estimate carbon fluxes associated with landsliding and deforestation. Land-cover data obtained from remotely sensed images taken at many points in time, and carbon-content data obtained from field sampling of vegetation, soil, and water, will be combined in a geographic information system (GIS) to model carbon storages and fluxes. This project will contribute to the education of a new generation of scientists in an emergent field that recognizes important links between Ecology and Earth Sciences. This goal will be accomplished by engaging students traditionally under-represented in science across educational levels in a variety of activities, including field work, satellite image analysis and modeling, and laboratory analyses. Students will also benefit from the cross-cultural aspects of interdisciplinary scientific research in international settings. Results of this project will improve the knowledge base needed for carbon mitigation projects in tropical regions, and will enhance our understanding of carbon cycling and sequestration in the context of climate change, hazard assessment, and forest conservation.