U.S.-Costa Rican Workshop: Interdisciplinary workgroup on water sustainability in the Tempisque Basin; Palo Verde NP, Costa Rica, April 2012

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In this international collaborative project researchers from the U.S. and Costa Rica will assemble an international team to address issues regarding water use in the Pacific Mesoamerican region, specifically in the Tempisque basin in northwestern Costa Rica. Using a cross-disciplinary approach that integrates hydrology with ecology and socio-economics, this project strives to help advance knowledge of wetland management in a heavily regulated tropical catchment with important conservation interest. The team will first define common goals and vision and identify the key research questions to be addressed in order to understand how this complex system works. A capstone international workshop will then gather researchers and stakeholders to collectively build a conceptual system model that will support the framing of compelling hypotheses for further research proposal development. The researchers involved will come from the University of Florida, Arizona State University, the Duke-based Organization of Tropical Studies (OTS), Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) and Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica (UNA). Among the activities to be planned for are (1) an in-depth quantitative analysis of the sustainability of water supply and demand in the Rio Tempisque/Bebedero basin in NW Costa Rica; (2) an exploration of how climate change may affect ecosystem services through changes in water availability, land use and biodiversity through empirical data and stakeholder input integration and model-based scenarios analysis, and (3) use of the basin as a representative site of Pacific Mesoamerica to investigate what actions may be taken, from policy to practice, to help maintain or improve water availability and ecosystem services in future years. The activities of this project should help lay the foundation for a better understanding of dynamic water use and availability and potential policy solutions for watershed sustainability. Outcomes from the proposed activities and any larger subsequent activities can contribute to both local and global societal benefits in terms of information and understanding that are key to economic growth, agricultural productivity, and biodiversity conservation. Results and outcomes will be disseminated to the scientific community and to the wider public through knowledge exchange activities. Easily prepared model scenarios have the potential to greatly facilitate the involvement of stakeholders in the process of identifying research gaps and planning issues. US and Costa Rican students and young researchers will be included in this effort. Involvement of junior researchers in collaborative international activities is a major goal of OISE.