Belmont Forum-G8 Initiative Collaborative Research: Enhancing Adaptation and Resilience to Drought in Dry Tropical Social-Ecological Systems: The Guyanacaste, Costa Rica Example

该奖项为参与一个项目的美国研究人员提供支持，该项目由贝尔蒙特论坛（Belmont Forum）和八国集团（G8）国家研究首长理事会（Heads of research council）通过13国全球变化研究计划竞争性地选出。贝尔蒙特论坛是一个由全球环境变化研究和国际科学理事会的世界主要和新兴资助者组成的高层组织。它的目的是通过协调和调动国际资源，加速进行最迫切需要的国际环境研究，以消除可持续发展的关键障碍。八国集团研究理事会负责人制定了一个资助框架，以支持以超出国家或双边活动能力的方式应对全球挑战的多边研究项目。每个伙伴国在一个联盟中为它们的研究人员提供资金，以减轻对跨越国际边界的资金的需求。这种方法有助于有效利用国家资源，支持对全球相关主题的优秀研究，最好通过多国方法解决，同时认识到全球挑战需要全球解决方案。在国际机会基金的首次呼吁下，贝尔蒙特论坛和g8horc共同努力，为研究项目提供支持，这些项目寻求提供行动所需的知识，以减轻和适应与淡水安全或沿海脆弱性有关的有害环境变化和极端危险事件。该奖项为美国研究人员在联盟中合作提供支持，该联盟由至少三个参与国的合作伙伴组成，并将自然科学家、社会科学家和研究用户（如政策制定者、监管机构、非政府组织、社区和行业）聚集在一起。该奖项支持的研究活动将确定未来的干旱适应方案，重点是在容易发生干旱的社会生态系统中建立对水资源短缺的抵御能力，并以哥斯达黎加干旱的西北地区为例进行研究。抗旱能力需要发展连贯的概念和科学知识，以及提高对人类和机构对事件和预测的反应的理解。该项目的目标是促进水资源的可持续管理，以造福社会和生态系统。该项目将通过以下方式做到这一点：(1)描述当前的物质和社会条件；(2)模拟气候和天气变化对资源、人类和其他变化驱动因素的影响；(3)开发决策辅助的新方法和实施，包括开发实用的新启发式、沟通和推广。这些努力将有助于干旱管理和适应的重要方面，既适用于干燥的热带环境，也更广泛地适用于对干旱敏感的耦合社会生态系统。该项目将有助于提高对含水层、农业、生态系统服务、气候情景和天气预报的监测和建模的综合理解。

This award provides support to U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 13-country initiative on global change research through the Belmont Forum and the G8 countries Heads of Research Councils. The Belmont Forum is a high level group of the world's major and emerging funders of global environmental change research and international science councils. 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. The G8 Heads of Research Councils developed a funding framework to support multilateral research projects that address global challenges in ways that are beyond the capacity of national or bilateral activities. Each partner country provides funding for their researchers within a consortium 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 an inaugural call of the International Opportunities Fund, the Belmont Forum and G8HORCs have provided support for research projects that seek to deliver knowledge needed for action to mitigate and adapt to detrimental environmental change and extreme hazardous events that relate to either Freshwater Security or Coastal Vulnerability. This award provides support for the U.S. researchers to cooperate in consortia that consist of partners from at least three of the participating countries and that bring together natural scientists, social scientists and research users (e.g., policy makers, regulators, NGOs, communities and industry). This award supports research activities that will identify future drought adaptation options, with an emphasis on building resilience to water scarcity in drought prone social-ecological systems, using the arid Northwest region of Costa Rica as a case study. Resilience to drought requires development of coherent conceptual and scientific knowledge as well as an improved understanding of human and institutional responses to events and forecasts. The goal of this project is to contribute to the sustainable management of water resources for the benefit of both society as well as ecosystems. The project will do this by (1) characterizing current physical and social conditions; (2) modeling the impacts of changing climate and weather on resources, people and other drivers of change; and (3) developing new methods for and implementation of decision aids, including the development of practical new heuristics, communication, and outreach. These efforts will contribute important aspects of drought management and adaptation, with applications both to dry tropical environments and more broadly to drought sensitive coupled socio-ecological systems. The project will contribute toward an improved and integrated understanding of the monitoring and modeling of aquifers, agriculture, ecosystem services, climate scenarios, and weather forecasts.