Sustainable use of water and soils in seasonally-dry regions: exploring the continuum between natural and intensively-managed ecosystems

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This project will support an international collaboration among researchers at Duke University, investigators in Brazil and Burkina Faso (Africa), and colleagues at ETH-Zurich and EPFL-Lausanne (Switzerland). The project is designed to quantitatively assess water use and soil-plant relationships in two distinct environments subject to strong, yet variable, wet and long dry seasons. In Brazil, the region under consideration has a longstanding sustainable agriculture initiative, whereas in Burkina Faso there are challenges with land management and deforestation. The research will combine models of plant and soil processes to assess the eco-hydrology of tropical dry ecosystems. This will generate tools that could be used to improve sustainable management of these fragile ecosystems. The collaborative efforts will identify environmental, climate, and socioeconomic drivers of land use decisions, and understanding these drivers will increase the sustainability of agricultural production under current land use and potential climate change scenarios. Collaboration with social scientists will enhance the impact of the research. Graduate and undergraduate students will receive training in a highly interdisciplinary environment, and will have a unique opportunity to learn, at an early stage of their careers, the value of international partnerships.This grant is co-funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE), Switzerland and Africa, Near East, and South Asia (ANESA) programs.