Sustainable use of water and soils in seasonally-dry regions: exploring the continuum between natural and intensively-managed ecosystems

该项目将支持杜克大学的研究人员、巴西和布基纳法索（非洲）的研究人员以及苏黎世联邦理工学院和洛桑联邦理工学院（瑞士）的同事之间的国际合作。 该项目旨在定量评估两种不同环境中的用水情况和土壤-植物关系，这两种环境都有强而多变的雨季和长时间的旱季。 在巴西，所审议的区域有一个长期的可持续农业倡议，而在布基纳法索，存在着土地管理和毁林方面的挑战。 这项研究将结合植物和土壤过程的联合收割机模型，以评估热带干旱生态系统的生态水文学。这将产生可用于改善这些脆弱生态系统的可持续管理的工具。 这些合作努力将确定土地利用决策的环境、气候和社会经济驱动因素，了解这些驱动因素将提高当前土地利用和潜在气候变化情景下农业生产的可持续性。 与社会科学家的合作将增强研究的影响力。研究生和本科生将在高度跨学科的环境中接受培训，并将有独特的机会在职业生涯的早期阶段学习国际合作伙伴关系的价值。该奖学金由国际科学与工程办公室（OISE），瑞士和非洲，近东和南亚（ANESA）项目共同资助。

This project will support an international collaboration among researchers at Duke University, investigators in Brazil and Burkina Faso (Africa), and colleagues at ETH-Zurich and EPFL-Lausanne (Switzerland). The project is designed to quantitatively assess water use and soil-plant relationships in two distinct environments subject to strong, yet variable, wet and long dry seasons. In Brazil, the region under consideration has a longstanding sustainable agriculture initiative, whereas in Burkina Faso there are challenges with land management and deforestation. The research will combine models of plant and soil processes to assess the eco-hydrology of tropical dry ecosystems. This will generate tools that could be used to improve sustainable management of these fragile ecosystems. The collaborative efforts will identify environmental, climate, and socioeconomic drivers of land use decisions, and understanding these drivers will increase the sustainability of agricultural production under current land use and potential climate change scenarios. Collaboration with social scientists will enhance the impact of the research. Graduate and undergraduate students will receive training in a highly interdisciplinary environment, and will have a unique opportunity to learn, at an early stage of their careers, the value of international partnerships.This grant is co-funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE), Switzerland and Africa, Near East, and South Asia (ANESA) programs.