Integrating land use planning and water governance in Amazonia: towards improved freshwater security in the agricultural frontier of Mato Grosso

热带森林集约作物农业的扩张是一个全球现象，其驱动因素是土地可获得性、饮食转向更多的肉类消费以及人口和收入的增长。这些土地利用的变化并没有伴随着水治理的显著改善。随着气候变化对这一农业系统所依赖的降水的数量、时间和变异性产生影响，这一点将变得越来越重要。此外，我们将研究与亚马逊农业前沿(巴西新古河流域上游)扩大大豆农业相关的淡水安全关键问题。我们将确定：1)土地转用、扩大耕地和农业集约化的影响如何相互作用，影响区域蒸散量、降雨量、河流洪水、水质和溪流生境，以及将危及农业生产、传统区域生计和下游与水有关的基础设施的变化门槛；2)水治理和环境信息服务分配机制最适合促进决策者、资源利用和其他利益攸关方的综合水管理。我们将通过现有的合作，让大豆种植者和牧场主参与进来。我们还将让市政官员、小生产者、渔民和以河流为基础的企业参与，以确定虚拟水和水文建模工具能够在多大程度上影响利益攸关方对水安全的理解，并将努力确定管理不可避免的水管理权衡的潜在体制机制。为了支持知情的决策进程，我们将分析区域人口流动、移民的社会和文化融合、土著和非土著当地人口在生计、水资源以及媒体在有关淡水安全的环境政策和决策方面的作用。

The expansion of intensive crop agriculture in tropical forests is a global phenomenon driven by land availability, shifts in diet to more meat consumption and growth of human populations and incomes. These land-use changes have not been accompanied by significant improvements in water governance. This will become increasingly important as changes to climate impact the amount, timing and variability of precipitation upon which this agricultural system depends. Moreover, we will examine the critical issue of Freshwater Security associated with expanding soybean agriculture in the agricultural frontier of Amazonia (upper Xingu River Basin, Brazil). We will identify: 1) how impacts from land conversion, cropland expansion and agricultural intensification interact to affect regional evapotranspiration, rainfall generation, river flooding, water quality and stream habitats and the thresholds of change that will endanger agricultural production, traditional regional livelihoods and downstream water-related infrastructure, and 2) what mechanisms of water governance and distribution of environmental information services are best suited to facilitate integrated water management by decision makers, resource uses and other stakeholders. We will engage soybean farmers and cattle ranchers through existing collaborations. We will also involve municipal officials, small producers, fishers and river-based businesses to determine to what extent a virtual water and hydrological modeling tools can influence stakeholder understanding of water security and will seek to identify potential institutional mechanisms to manage inevitable water management tradeoffs. To provide support for an informed decision making process, we will analyze regional population movements, social and cultural integration of migrants, relations between indigenous and non-indigenous local population regarding livelihood, water resources and the role of media in relation to environmental policy and decision making regarding freshwater security.