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热潮，这已经使全球4000万至8000万人流离失所，并产生了巨大但无法量化的生态影响。为了更好地理解大坝建设的影响，需要研究整合大坝如何改变人们与环境互动方式的直接环境影响，间接影响以及这两种影响之间的相互作用。蒙古的色楞格河流域正在建设第一座大坝，另一座大坝也在规划之中，是进行此类调查的绝佳研究地点。这也是一个引人注目的地方，因为北蒙古不断变化的降水模式和不断上升的气温（气温上升的速度是全球平均水平的三倍），使得传统的放牧变得更加困难，经济上也更加危险。一些牧民的对策是加强对其他自然资源的利用，包括鱼类。通过结合社会科学和环境科学的研究方法，并利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，开发一套综合方法，以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工作和以团队为基础的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色楞格河人类和自然系统的影响。他们将进行的项目包括：1)利用分析水中鱼类的环境DNA （eDNA）对极度濒危鱼类进行调查；2)利用无人驾驶飞行器（uav或无人机）作为快速且不显眼的视觉调查平台，估计世界上最大的鲑科鱼台湾的丰度；3)进行游泳性能试验，预测鱼类利用为减轻大坝影响而设计的鱼梯的能力；4)采访社区长者，评估过去和大坝建设以来的社区变化率；5)采访年轻村民，了解大坝建设等因素如何影响他们离开村庄前往城市的愿望；6)评估大坝可能造成的鱼类数量下降对外国运动渔民（他们为该地区带来了宝贵的外汇）和日益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.