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

博士论文研究：安第斯农村社区流域管理的适应

• 批准号: 0926584
• 负责人: David Lopez-Carr
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2011-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0926584&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Adaptation; Watershed

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.

在南美洲的安第斯地区，了解社区如何组织和合作对水管理尤为重要，因为许多农村社区得到的政府支持很少，社区必须自己决定是否以及如何保护他们的流域和分配他们的水。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诸如土地利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。加州大学圣巴巴拉分校博士生Felipe Murtinho将在其博士生导师David Carr博士的指导下，探索决定哥伦比亚Fúquene流域当地用水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。Fúquene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，获得安全饮用水取决于用户协会的管理决定。此外，由于土地利用变化和气候变率，该地区面临着不确定的水条件。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了水用户协会适应不断变化的微流域条件的举措？如果一个用水协会发起了一项倡议，他们具体做些什么？为什么他们会选择某些适应策略而不是其他策略？建议的研究采用定量和定性的方法，包括对关键举报人的深入访谈和基于水用户协会和家庭信息的多层次统计模型。调查、气象数据、城市社会经济信息和土地利用/土地覆盖图。项目结果将解释三个不同尺度（家庭、协会和更广泛的治理背景）的不同特征如何以及为什么影响协会适应水情变化的决策。本研究探讨当地社区面对环境变化时的资源管理与集体行动。通过确定决定用水户协会如何以及在什么条件下适应水源退化变化的关键因素，这些结果将有助于有关适应环境变化的文献。该研究特别侧重于确定在何种规模上触发适应过程：适应举措是否取决于家庭/协会的特征？或者，来自当地政府机构或非政府组织（ngo）的支持是协会决定适应的决定性因素吗？这些问题的答案具有重要的政策意义，因为它们可能为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提供见解。