CNH: Acequia Water Systems Linking Culture and Nature: Integrated Analysis of Community Resilience to Climate and Land-Use Changes

CNH：连接文化与自然的 Acequia 水系统：社区对气候和土地利用变化的适应能力的综合分析

• 批准号: 1010516
• 负责人: Alexander Fernald
• 金额: $ 140.09万
• 依托单位: New Mexico State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-15 至 2016-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1010516&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CNH; Acequia; Water; Systems; Linking

In arable valleys of water-limited regions worldwide, community water management systems have evolved to sustain communities in the face of unreliable precipitation. The acequias of the southwestern United States are community irrigation systems that are based largely on ancient technology introduced to the region by 16th-century settlers. Acequias consist of gravity-fed earthen canals that divert stream flow for distribution to fields. They lie at the center of a set of complex self-maintaining interactions between culture and nature that appear to enable drought survival and maintain other sociocultural and ecosystem benefits. Local water management groups inherent in acequias ensure equitable distribution of water to each community, allocating less water for all users in dry years and more in wet years. Acequias help maintain community identity and cohesion, economic sustainability, enhanced floodplain hydrologic function, and wildlife habitat. Contemporary acequia-based communities face new socioeconomic and natural resource pressures that threaten their existence, however. Population growth is accelerating the change from agricultural to residential land and water uses, while climate change threatens to bring warmer winters with less precipitation and earlier spring snowmelt. Traditional acequias create and sustain intrinsic linkages between human and natural systems that increase community and ecosystem resilience to climatic and socioeconomic stresses. Greater knowledge about these interconnections and what can cause them to change or fail will be essential to determine how the communities relying on acequias can adapt to changing conditions. This interdisciplinary research project will explore socioeconomic and cultural linkages within and between acequia communities and associated landscapes; hydrologic linkages between surface water and groundwater in irrigated river valleys and contributing watersheds; and wildlife habitat and grazing distribution connections between valley riparian areas and upland forests and grasslands. The investigators will quantify the role of acequias in hydrologic function, community resilience, and ecosystem health, and they will identify potential tipping points for acequia community survival. Integrative tools informed by examinations of socioeconomic, cultural, and ecohydrological factors will indicate the resilience level of acequia-centered systems. A system dynamics model will simulate effects of climate and land-use stressors on relationships between economic, social, cultural, climatic, hydrologic, vegetation, and wildlife components. The model will quantify the magnitude of stressors needed to undermine community and ecosystem resilience. Mapping will capture spatial linkages and help communicate the findings to a larger audience.This project will provide new insights into the relationships between traditional water management systems, communities, and landscapes. It will broaden participation of minorities by conducting research in rural Hispanic communities. Community members will be active participants in the project and help determine keys to their own community survival. Project results will be made available to researchers, policy makers, local stakeholders, and the general public through scientific publications, presentations, extension documents, and workshops. Teachers from the region will be involved in participatory training in order to reach K-12 students. Undergraduate students will be directly involved in the research, as will graduate students who will be trained as future scientists and community leaders. A major museum exhibit will integrate spirituality and sense of place into presentation of community resource governance. Cross-pollination of ideas with international experts will take place through a global comparative workshop and a comparative study in Chile. Policy guidance resulting from this study should help maintain acequia communities and similar common-pool resource systems worldwide. This project is supported by the NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Program.

在全球水资源有限地区的可耕谷中，社区水资源管理系统已经发展到能够在降水不可靠的情况下维持社区的运转。 美国西南部的 acequias 是一种社区灌溉系统，主要基于 16 世纪定居者引入该地区的古老技术。 Acequias 由重力供给的土渠组成，可将水流转移到田地。 它们位于文化与自然之间一系列复杂的自我维持相互作用的中心，这些相互作用似乎能够使干旱生存并维持其他社会文化和生态系统效益。 acequias 固有的当地水管理团体确保向每个社区公平分配水，在干旱年份为所有用户分配较少的水，在潮湿年份分配更多的水。 Acequias 有助于维持社区认同和凝聚力、经济可持续性、增强洪泛区水文功能和野生动物栖息地。 然而，当代以 acequia 为基础的社区面临着新的社会经济和自然资源压力，威胁着他们的生存。 人口增长正在加速土地和水资源利用从农业向住宅的转变，而气候变化则可能导致冬季变暖、降水减少和春季融雪提前。 传统的 acequias 在人类和自然系统之间建立并维持内在联系，从而提高社区和生态系统对气候和社会经济压力的适应能力。 更多地了解这些相互联系以及可能导致其变化或失败的原因对于确定依赖 acequias 的社区如何适应不断变化的条件至关重要。 这个跨学科研究项目将探索 acequia 群落和相关景观内部和之间的社会经济和文化联系；灌溉河谷和流域地表水和地下水之间的水文联系；野生动物栖息地以及山谷河岸地区与高地森林和草原之间的放牧分布联系。 研究人员将量化 acequia 在水文功能、群落恢复力和生态系统健康方面的作用，并将确定 acequia 群落生存的潜在临界点。 通过对社会经济、文化和生态水文因素的检查提供的综合工具将表明以 acequia 为中心的系统的复原力水平。 系统动力学模型将模拟气候和土地利用压力因素对经济、社会、文化、气候、水文、植被和野生动物组成部分之间关系的影响。 该模型将量化破坏社区和生态系统复原力所需的压力源的大小。 绘图将捕捉空间联系，并有助于向更多受众传达研究结果。该项目将为传统水管理系统、社区和景观之间的关系提供新的见解。 它将通过在农村西班牙裔社区开展研究来扩大少数族裔的参与。 社区成员将积极参与该项目，并帮助确定社区生存的关键。 项目结果将通过科学出版物、演示文稿、扩展文件和研讨会向研究人员、政策制定者、当地利益相关者和公众提供。 该地区的教师将参与参与式培训，以覆盖 K-12 学生。 本科生将直接参与研究，被培训为未来科学家和社区领袖的研究生也将直接参与研究。 大型博物馆展览将把灵性和地方感融入到社区资源治理的呈现中。 将通过全球比较研讨会和智利的比较研究与国际专家进行思想的交叉传播。 这项研究产生的政策指导应有助于维持全球的 acequia 社区和类似的公共池资源系统。 该项目得到了 NSF 自然与人类耦合系统动力学 (CNH) 计划的支持。