Doctoral Dissertation Research: Adaptation in Watershed Management Among Andean Rural Communities

在南美洲安第斯地区，了解社区如何组织和合作对水资源管理特别重要，因为许多农村社区得到的政府支持很少，社区本身必须决定是否以及如何保护其流域和分配水。 尽管对促进资源管理集体行动的因素进行了研究，但对使地方社区能够适应土地使用变化和气候变化等不确定的变化条件的具体条件了解有限。 博士在加州圣巴巴拉大学的博士生导师大卫卡尔博士的指导下，学生Felipe Murtinho将探讨决定哥伦比亚Fúquene流域当地水用户协会是否采取措施管理其小流域以适应其水资源退化的因素。 富肯是研究当地社区如何适应水退化的理想场所，因为在大多数社区，安全饮用水的获得取决于用户协会的管理决定。 此外，由于土地使用的变化和气候的多变性，该地区面临着不确定的水资源状况。 具体而言，本研究将解决以下两个问题：什么条件促进或阻碍水用户协会的主动行动，以适应不断变化的小流域条件？如果一个用水协会采取了一项举措，他们具体做了什么，为什么他们选择某些适应战略而不是其他战略？ 拟议的研究采用定量和定性的方法，包括深入访谈的关键信息和多层次的统计模型与水用户协会和家庭的信息？调查、气象数据、城市社会经济信息和土地使用/土地覆盖图。 项目结果将解释三个不同规模（家庭、协会和更广泛的管理背景）的不同特征如何以及为什么影响协会适应水条件变化的决定。 本研究探讨当地社区面对环境变化时的资源管理和集体行动。研究结果将有助于文献适应环境变化，确定关键因素，确定如何，在什么条件下，水用户协会适应水源退化的变化。 研究特别侧重于确定在何种规模上启动适应进程：适应举措是否取决于家庭/协会的特点？ 或者，地方政府机构或非政府组织的支持是协会作出适应决定的决定因素吗？ 对这些问题的回答具有重要的政策意义，因为它们可以使人们了解政府机构和非政府组织如何以及在何处分配稀缺资源，以提高当地社区适应气候变化等不断变化的环境条件的能力。

In the Andean region of South America, understanding how communities organize and cooperate is particularly important for water management as many rural communities receive minimal government support and the communities themselves must decide if and how they will protect their watersheds and distribute their water. Despite research on the factors that facilitate collective action in resource management, there is limited knowledge on the specific conditions that enable local communities to adapt to uncertain changing conditions such as land-use changes and climate change. Ph.D. student Felipe Murtinho under the supervision of his doctoral advisor Dr. David Carr at the University of California Santa Barbara will explore the factors that determine whether local water user associations in the Fúquene watershed in Colombia take measures to manage their micro-watershed in order to adapt to the degradation of their water resources. Fúquene is an ideal place to examine how local communities adapt to water degradation because in most communities access to safe drinking water depends on the management decisions of the user associations. In addition, this region faces uncertain water conditions due to land-use changes and climate variability. Specifically, this research will address the two following questions: what conditions either facilitate or impede a water user associations' initiatives to adapt to changing micro-watershed conditions?, and if a water use association undertakes an initiative, what specifically do they do, and why do they choose certain adaptation strategies over others? The proposed research uses quantitative and qualitative methods including in-depth interviews to key informants and multi-level statistical models with information from water user associations and households? surveys, meteorological data, municipal socio-economic information and land-use/land cover maps. The project results will provide explanations about how and why different characteristics at three different scales (households, the associations, and the broader governing context) impact the decision of the associations to adapt to changes in water conditions. This study explores resource management and collective action when local communities face environmental changes. The results will contribute to the literature on adaptation to environmental change by identifying key factors that determine how, and under what conditions water user associations adapt to changes in water sources degradation. The research focuses particularly on identifying at what scale adaptation processes are triggered: do adaptation initiatives depend on households/associations characteristics? Or, is support from local governmental agencies or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) a determining factor in associations' decisions to adapt? Answers to these questions have important policy implications as they may provide insights of how and where government agencies and NGOs could allocate scarce resources to increase the capacity of local communities to adapt to changing environmental conditions such as climate change.