Agrobiodiversity and Development of Meso-Scale Irrigation in Tropical Mountain Ecosystems of Bolivia and Peru

由于灌溉农业发展的影响，各种粮食植物生物多样性（农业生物多样性）的丧失一直被认为是既成事实。根据标准假设和分析，农业生物多样性下降是现代农业以灌溉为基础发展的必要环境权衡。然而，最近的研究对农业生物多样性与灌溉之间的负面相互作用的假设提出了挑战。本研究项目将调查过去15至20年间与中型灌溉项目发展有关的生物多样性、社会条件和政策网络的变化。调查人员将在玻利维亚和秘鲁的实地地点进行多个案例研究。这些研究将由这些国家以及加拿大、美国和哥伦比亚的国际政策和援助组织的调查人员加以补充。该项目以环境与发展变化关系的地理理论为基础。将特别强调农业生物多样性（农业生物多样性）与灌溉农场环境之间的联系。还将注意灌溉风险和家庭一级的资源状况，以及国家和全球发展机构最近政策下的灌溉环境设计。调查员及其秘鲁合作者将采用包括人种学和访谈在内的研究方法和分析；农业调查;植物生态与土壤分析；GIS数据库;多元回归分析；审查机构、财产和档案文件。预计这项研究的社会意义将在其对农业和环境可持续性的政策制定和分析的贡献中得到明显体现。这种重要性集中在农业生物多样性下降和供水管理日益加强的综合问题和挑战上。这对热带山地国家半干旱环境的农业和居民尤其重要，例如玻利维亚和秘鲁，这两个国家支持着全球农业生物多样性的很大一部分，而这些农业生物多样性受到中尺度灌溉面积扩大的影响。该研究项目还将提供关于在这种灌溉管理下农业生物多样性对农业的作用的分析和指导方针，并将为与技术和社会变革有关的农业生物多样性和灌溉的政策提供建议。

Loss of the biological diversity of diverse food plants (agrobiodiversity) has long been assumed a fait accompli due to the effects of irrigated agricultural development. According to standard assumptions and analysis, agrobiodiversity decline is a necessary environmental trade-off in the irrigation-based development of modern agriculture. Recent studies have challenged assumptions regarding negative interactions between agrobiodiversity and irrigation, however. This research project will investigate the changes in biodiversity, social conditions, and policy networks that are associated with the development of medium-scale irrigation projects during the last 15 to 20 years. The investigators will conduct multiple case studies at field sites in Bolivia and Peru. These studies will be complemented by investigators at international policy and aid organizations in those countries as well as in Canada, the United States, and Colombia. The project is grounded in geographical theory of the relation of the environment to development change. Special emphasis will be given to links between biodiversity in agriculture (agrobiodiversity) and irrigated farm environments. Attention also will be given to irrigation risk and household-level resource status and to the environmental design of irrigation under recent policies of national and global development agencies. The investigator and his Peruvian collaborators will apply research methods and analysis that consist of ethnography and interviews; farm surveys; plant ecological and soils analysis; GIS databases; multiple regression analysis; and examination of institutional, property, and archive documents.The social significance of this research is expected to be evident in its contributions to policy making and analysis for agricultural and environmental sustainability. This significance is centered on the combined problems and challenges of declining biological diversity in agriculture and the increasing management of water supplies. It is especially significant for the agriculture and inhabitants of semi-arid environments of tropical mountain countries, exemplified in Bolivia and Peru, which support a large share of global agrobiodiversity that is subject to expanding areas of meso-scale irrigation. The research project also will contribute analysis and guidelines on the role of agrobiodiversity to farming under this sort of irrigation management, and it will provide recommendations for policies that are concerned with agrobiodiversity and irrigation in relation to technological and social change.