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 examine issues surrounding freshwater security associated with the expansion of intensive crop agriculture in tropical forests. Intensification of crop agriculture is a global phenomenon that is rapidly shifting land use as populations and incomes increase. These agricultural changes have important implications for water use and quality, but land use changes are rarely associated with changes in water governance and management. This project will (1) identify how impacts from land conversion, cropland expansion and agricultural intensification interact to affect regional evapotranspiration, rainfall generation, river flooding, water quality and stream habitat and the thresholds of change that will endanger agricultural production, livelihoods and infrastructure, and (2) what mechanisms of governance and communication are best suited to facilitate effective and efficient water management. Farmers, ranchers, families, municipal officials and businesses will be engaged to assess what mechanisms can influence water security assessments and manage tradeoffs. This project will contribute toward an improved understanding of how shifts in land use impacts water use and governance and how engagement and management can impact freshwater sustainability in regions with rapidly changing land use.
