In this project, researchers set out to create a coordination network with the goal to create capacity to understand the resilience of headwater dependent systems to environmental change across a latitudinal Transect of the Americas. The premise of the project was that human communities have relied on water storage from glaciers, snowpack, and groundwater in headwater watersheds for centuries. With climate change, water supply amount and variability from headwater storage systems to downstream communities have shifted resulting in more frequent droughts, wildfires, and extreme precipitation events. Vulnerability of downstream communities depends upon the direction and magnitude of hydrologic change, as well as their ability to adapt. The project adopted headwater dependent systems as new terminology for the study of the interconnections between social and ecological changes that result naturally and through adaptation decisions.

The Transect and the people in the network combined knowledge of watershed hydro-climatology and downstream human development at multiple sites in the United States, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina and Chile. In total, the network consists of faculty and students from 12 universities across the Transect along with 24 students who participated in a separately funded, but tightly integrated, International Research Experience for Students project. Coordination during the project occurred through webinars and four in person annual meetings at key sites in Santiago & Concepcion, Chile; Cuenca, Ecuador; Lima, Peru;  Mendoza, Argentina; and Albuquerque, New Mexico. During COVID, two annual meetings were held virtually. Each year, annual meetings centered around a different core theme- methodologies to characterize complex socio-ecological sites, interdisciplinary data needs and availability, assessment of models for integrated analyses of adaptation scenarios, and synthesis and communication.

Project outcomes include (1) the network and the science produced through international, institutional and interdisciplinary collaborations; (2) new terminology and approaches for study of headwater dependent systems; (3) understanding of comparative systems of water storage and their transient behaviors across the Transect, such as snow and glaciers, high elevation wetlands, groundwater, and human-made reservoirs; (4) experiences of variability in data availability, and sometimes lack of data across the Transect, especially in the social science arena; (5) a multitude of model types suitable to apply towards evaluation of adaptation scenarios at the watershed scale; (6) strong representation of researchers from the bio-physical disciplines and weak representation of social science disciplines; (7) the need to involve local knowledge and data from communities who are affected by climate change and who are key players in adaptation decision-making; and (8) education and professional development opportunities provided to approximately 50 students in research experiences across the transect and in our courses.

Last Modified: 12/10/2024
Modified by: Jan Boll