Belmont Forum Collaborative Research: ClimateWIse: Climate-Smart Watershed Investments in the Montane Tropics of South America

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This award provides support to U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a six-country initiative on global change research through the Belmont Forum. The Belmont Forum is a group of the world?s major and emerging funders of global environmental change research. It aims to accelerate delivery of the international environmental research most urgently needed to remove critical barriers to sustainability by aligning and mobilizing international resources. Each partner organization provides funding for researchers from their country to alleviate the need for funds to cross international borders. This approach facilitates effective leveraging of national resources to support excellent research on topics of global relevance best tackled through a multinational approach, recognizing that global challenges need global solutions.Working together in a Collaborative Research Action, the six partner organizations have provided support for research projects that utilize a strong inter- and trans-disciplinary approach to examine climate, environmental, and related societal change in mountain regions. This award provides support for the U.S. researchers to cooperate in a consortium of partners from at least three of the participating countries and that brings together natural scientists, social scientists and research users (e.g., policy makers, regulators, NGOs, communities and industry). Throughout South America, millions of people depend on water from high-elevation water sources, which are under increasing pressure from land-use and environmental change. This project seeks to enhance sustainable water management by improving scientific understanding of the hydrologic impacts of land-use and environmental changes in tropical mountains, increasing the scientific foundation for ecosystem services-based management, and advancing outcomes for water users throughout the region. The findings will be of direct use for water management within and beyond South America.