CNH: Acequia Water Systems Linking Culture and Nature: Integrated Analysis of Community Resilience to Climate and Land-Use Changes

CNH：连接文化与自然的 Acequia 水系统：社区对气候和土地利用变化的适应能力的综合分析

• 批准号: 1010516
• 负责人: Alexander Fernald
• 金额: $ 140.09万
• 依托单位: New Mexico State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-15 至 2016-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1010516&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CNH; Acequia; Water; Systems; Linking

In arable valleys of water-limited regions worldwide, community water management systems have evolved to sustain communities in the face of unreliable precipitation. The acequias of the southwestern United States are community irrigation systems that are based largely on ancient technology introduced to the region by 16th-century settlers. Acequias consist of gravity-fed earthen canals that divert stream flow for distribution to fields. They lie at the center of a set of complex self-maintaining interactions between culture and nature that appear to enable drought survival and maintain other sociocultural and ecosystem benefits. Local water management groups inherent in acequias ensure equitable distribution of water to each community, allocating less water for all users in dry years and more in wet years. Acequias help maintain community identity and cohesion, economic sustainability, enhanced floodplain hydrologic function, and wildlife habitat. Contemporary acequia-based communities face new socioeconomic and natural resource pressures that threaten their existence, however. Population growth is accelerating the change from agricultural to residential land and water uses, while climate change threatens to bring warmer winters with less precipitation and earlier spring snowmelt. Traditional acequias create and sustain intrinsic linkages between human and natural systems that increase community and ecosystem resilience to climatic and socioeconomic stresses. Greater knowledge about these interconnections and what can cause them to change or fail will be essential to determine how the communities relying on acequias can adapt to changing conditions. This interdisciplinary research project will explore socioeconomic and cultural linkages within and between acequia communities and associated landscapes; hydrologic linkages between surface water and groundwater in irrigated river valleys and contributing watersheds; and wildlife habitat and grazing distribution connections between valley riparian areas and upland forests and grasslands. The investigators will quantify the role of acequias in hydrologic function, community resilience, and ecosystem health, and they will identify potential tipping points for acequia community survival. Integrative tools informed by examinations of socioeconomic, cultural, and ecohydrological factors will indicate the resilience level of acequia-centered systems. A system dynamics model will simulate effects of climate and land-use stressors on relationships between economic, social, cultural, climatic, hydrologic, vegetation, and wildlife components. The model will quantify the magnitude of stressors needed to undermine community and ecosystem resilience. Mapping will capture spatial linkages and help communicate the findings to a larger audience.This project will provide new insights into the relationships between traditional water management systems, communities, and landscapes. It will broaden participation of minorities by conducting research in rural Hispanic communities. Community members will be active participants in the project and help determine keys to their own community survival. Project results will be made available to researchers, policy makers, local stakeholders, and the general public through scientific publications, presentations, extension documents, and workshops. Teachers from the region will be involved in participatory training in order to reach K-12 students. Undergraduate students will be directly involved in the research, as will graduate students who will be trained as future scientists and community leaders. A major museum exhibit will integrate spirituality and sense of place into presentation of community resource governance. Cross-pollination of ideas with international experts will take place through a global comparative workshop and a comparative study in Chile. Policy guidance resulting from this study should help maintain acequia communities and similar common-pool resource systems worldwide. This project is supported by the NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Program.

在全世界水最受限制地区的耕地山谷中，面对不可靠的降水，社区水管理系统已经发展为维持社区。 美国西南部的浮雕是社区灌溉系统，主要基于16世纪定居者向该地区引入该地区的古代技术。 Acequias由重力喂养的泥土运河组成，这些管道转移流动以分布到田地。 它们位于文化与自然之间一系列复杂的自我维护互动的中心，这些互动似乎使干旱生存并保持其他社会文化和生态系统的利益。 阿塞奎亚斯固有的当地水管理小组可确保向每个社区的水公平分配，从而为干旱年份的所有用户分配更少的水，而在潮湿的年份中为更多的用户分配。 Acequias有助于维持社区的身份和凝聚力，经济可持续性，增强的洪泛区水文功能以及野生动植物栖息地。 然而，基于当代的Acequia社区面临着威胁其存在的新的社会经济和自然资源压力。 人口增长正在加速从农业到住宅用水和用水的变化，而气候变化威胁着将降水量较小的温暖冬季和较早的春季融化。 传统的Acequias在人类和自然系统之间建立并维持内在的联系，从而增加了社区和生态系统对气候和社会经济压力的韧性。 对这些互连以及导致它们改变或失败的是什么知识对于确定依赖阿塞奎亚的社区如何适应不断变化的条件至关重要。 这个跨学科研究项目将探讨acequia社区和相关景观之间和之间的社会经济和文化联系；灌溉河谷中的地表水与地下水之间的水文连接以及贡献流域；以及山谷河岸地区与高地森林和草原之间的野生动植物栖息地和放牧分布连接。 调查人员将量化Acequias在水文功能，社区弹性和生态系统健康中的作用，并将确定Acequia社区生存的潜在转折点。 通过检查社会经济，文化和生态水文因素的考试所告知的综合工具将表明以Acequia为中心的系统的弹性水平。 系统动力学模型将模拟气候和土地利用压力源对经济，社会，文化，气候，水文，植被和野生动植物组成部分之间关系的影响。 该模型将量化破坏社区和生态系统弹性所需的压力源的大小。 映射将捕获空间联系，并帮助将发现与更大的受众传达。该项目将为传统水管理系统，社区和景观之间的关系提供新的见解。 它将通过在西班牙裔农村社区进行研究来扩大少数民族的参与。 社区成员将成为该项目的积极参与者，并帮助确定自己的社区生存的钥匙。 项目结果将通过科学出版物，演示，扩展文件和研讨会提供给研究人员，政策制定者，当地利益相关者和公众。 该地区的老师将参与参与培训，以吸引K-12学生。 本科生将直接参与研究，将接受未来科学家和社区领袖培训的研究生。 一个主要的博物馆展览将将灵性和地位感融入社区资源治理的介绍中。 与国际专家的思想交叉授粉将通过全球比较研讨会和智利的比较研究进行。 这项研究产生的政策指导应有助于维护全球范围内的Acequia社区和类似的普通池资源系统。 该项目得到了耦合自然和人类系统（CNH）计划的NSF动力学支持。