U.S.-Nepal Research Planning Visit: Impacts of Climate on Rural Communities in the Gandaki River Watershed, Nepal

变化的cimate有可能扰乱世界各地的农村社区，迫切需要测试现有的社区对这种变化的恢复力的理论和概念模型。尼泊尔喜马拉雅山脉甘达基河走廊沿线社会和生态系统的显著变化为检验这些理论提供了理想的条件，该项目的目标是支持为期三周的研究规划之旅，以发展与尼泊尔合作伙伴的合作关系，并最终确定关于气候变化对该地区农村社区的影响的研究假设。通过支持美国经济学、土木工程和地球科学的研究人员开展新的国际合作，该项目有助于加强美国的STEM能力。这次规划访问的主要重点区域是甘达基河走廊。甘达基河是尼泊尔的主要河流之一，它横穿从干旱的青藏高原，穿过西瓦利克山麓，到潮湿的特莱平原的多种多样的景观。美国的研究团队包括一名大气科学家、一名经济学家和一名水资源工程师。尼泊尔的合作伙伴包括来自社会科学和自然科学背景的顶尖研究人员。具体地说，尼泊尔的主要合作协调员是国家自然保护信托基金(NTNC)的高级环境研究科学家Siddhartha Bajracharya博士，他在甘达基走廊沿线工作经验丰富。三名美国研究生也将参与该项目。这次规划访问是该团队长期研究目标的第一步，目的是促进对生物物理和社会因素之间的联系和反馈机制的理解，这些因素影响着在相互作用的空间、时间和组织尺度上对气候变化的脆弱性和复原力。

Changing cimate has the potential to disrupt rural communities worldwide, and there is a pressing need to test existing theories and conceptual models of community resiliency to such changes. The remarkable variability in social and ecological systems along the Gandaki River corridor in Nepal's Himalayan range provides ideal conditions to test these theories, and the goal of this project is to support a three-week research planning trip to develop collaborative relationships with Nepalese partners and to finalize research hypotheses on the impacts of changing climate on rural communities in the region. By supporting U.S. researchers in Economics, Civil Engineering, and Earth Sciences to develop new international collaborations, this project helps to strengthen the nation's STEM capabilities.The primary focus area for this planning visit is the Gandaki River Corridor. The Gandaki is one of the major rivers of Nepal and it transects remarkably diverse landscapes from the arid Tibetan Plateau, through the Siwalik foothills, and into the humid Terai plains. The U.S.-based research team includes an atmospheric scientist, an economist, and a water resources engineer. The Nepalese partners include top researchers from both social and physical science backgrounds. Specifically, the primary collaboration coordinator in Nepal is Dr. Siddhartha Bajracharya, a senior environmental research scientist at the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC), who has extensive experience working along the Gandaki corridor. Three U.S. graduate students will also participate in the project. This planning visit represents an initial step in the team's long-term research goal to advance understanding of the linkages and feedback mechanisms between biophysical and social factors that influence vulnerability and resilience to changing climate across interacting spatial, temporal, and organizational scales.