IRES: People, power, and rivers: social-ecological dynamics of hydroelectric development in northern Mongolia

对可再生能源的推动推动了全球水电大坝建设的热潮，这场热潮已经使全球4,000万至8,000万人流离失所，并产生了巨大但未量化的生态影响。为了更好地了解修建大坝的影响，需要进行研究，将直接环境影响、大坝如何改变人们与环境互动的间接影响以及这两种影响之间的相互作用结合起来。蒙古的色伦格河流域正在建设第一座大型水坝，另一座正在规划中，这是进行此类调查的绝佳研究地点。它也是一个令人信服的地方，因为蒙古北部不断变化的降水模式和不断上升的气温(升温速度是全球平均水平的三倍)，使传统的牧业变得更加困难，经济风险也更大。一些牧民的反应是加强对包括鱼类在内的其他自然资源的利用。通过结合社会科学和环境科学的研究方法，并使用高科技工具和实地工作，18名美国学生将与来自几个美国机构和蒙古科学院的科学家/导师合作，开发一套完整的方法来研究水电开发的社会和生态动态。该项目还将为美国学生提供跨文化和以团队为基础的方法处理大型复杂项目的实践经验。这个IRES项目使学生能够使用多种方法来评估大坝对塞尔吉河人类和自然系统的影响。他们将进行的项目包括：1)通过分析鱼类在水中排放的环境DNA(EDNA)来调查极度濒危的鱼类物种；2)使用无人机(无人机或无人机)作为快速和不引人注目的视觉调查平台，估计世界上最大的鲑鱼--泰门的丰度；3)进行游泳性能试验，预测鱼类利用旨在减轻大坝影响的鱼梯的能力；4)采访社区长老，以衡量过去和大坝建设开始以来的社区变化率；5)采访年轻村民，了解筑坝和其他因素如何影响他们离开村庄前往城市的愿望；以及6)评估大坝可能导致的鱼类数量减少对外国渔民(他们为该地区带来宝贵的外汇)和越来越依赖鱼类作为食物的蒙古人的影响。

The push for renewable energy has driven a global hydroelectric dam-building boom that has already displaced 40-80 million people worldwide and has had large but unquantified ecological impacts. To better understand the impacts of dam-building, research is needed to integrate direct environmental effects, indirect effects of how dams change the ways people interact with their environment, and the interactions between these two effects. With its first large dam under construction and another planned, Mongolia's Selenge River watershed represents an excellent study site for such an investigation. It is also a compelling site because Northern Mongolia's shifting precipitation patterns and rising air temperatures (which have warmed three times faster than the global average), have made traditional herding a more difficult and economically risky livelihood. Some herders have responded by intensifying their use of other natural resources, including fish. By combining research methods from the social and environmental sciences, and by using high-technology tools as well as field work, 18 U.S. students, working with scientists/mentors from several U.S. institutions and from the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, will develop an integrated set of approaches for examining social and ecological dynamics of hydroelectric development. This project will also give U.S. students hands-on experience in working across cultures and in a team-based approach to large complex projects.This IRES project enables students to use multiple approaches to evaluate the impact of dams on the Selenge River's human and natural systems. Among the projects they will undertake are: 1) surveying for critically endangered fish species using analysis of environmental DNA (eDNA) shed by fish in the water; 2) estimating the abundance of Taimen, the world's largest salmonid, using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) as a rapid and unobtrusive visual survey platform; 3) conducting swimming performance trials to forecast fishes' ability to utilize fish ladders designed to mitigate dam impacts; 4) interviewing community elders to gauge rates of community change in the past and since dam construction started; 5) interviewing young villagers to understand how dam-building and other factors influence their desire to leave their villages for urban area; and 6) assessing the impacts of possible dam-caused fish declines on foreign sport fisherman (who bring valuable foreign currency to the region) and on Mongolians who increasingly depend on fish for food.