Interdisciplinary Water Development in the Peruvian Highlands: The Case for Including the Coproduction of Knowledge in Socio-Hydrology

Abstract

Agrarian communities in the Peruvian Andes depend on local water resources that are threatened by both a changing climate and changes in the socio-politics of water allocation. A community’s local autonomy over water resources and its capacity to plan for a sustainable and secure water future depends, in part, on integrated local environmental knowledge (ILEK), which leverages and blends traditional and western scientific approaches to knowledge production. Over the course of a two-year collaborative water development project with the agrarian district of Zurite, we designed and implemented an applied model of socio-hydrology focused on the coproduction of knowledge among scientists, local knowledge-holders and students. Our approach leveraged knowledge across academic disciplines and cultures, trained students to be valued producers of knowledge, and, most importantly, integrated the needs and concerns of the community. The result is a community-based ILEK that informs sustainable land and water management and has the potential to increase local autonomy over water resources. Furthermore, the direct link between interdisciplinary water science and community benefits empowered students to pursue careers in water development. The long-term benefits of our approach support the inclusion of knowledge coproduction among scholars, students and, in particular, community members, in applied studies of socio-hydrology.

Seasonal water storage in peat-forming bofedales sustains baseflow in the Andes

“…Continuous runoff data spanning three complete water years show distinct wet-dry season dynamics. Runoff in the URW is controlled by precipitation inputs, reflecting the precipitation driven hydrograph of the 11,048 km 2 VUB (Drenkhan et al, 2015;Buytaert et al, 2017;Oshun et al, 2021). Runoff in the URW comprised 57%, 74%, and 58% of annual water balance inputs from WY2019 to WY2021, similar to runoff ratios reported in undisturbed Andean grasslands in the humid puna and the wetter páramos in the northern Andes (Ochoa-Tocachi et al, 2016;Mosquera et al, 2015).…”

“…Approximately 1,000,000 people live in the VUB, and most depend on water resources draining the humid puna (SEDACUSCO EPS, 2019). Approximately 78.2% of the VUB is covered in puna (Oshun et al, 2021;Josse et al, 2009;Ochoa-Tocachi et al, 2016) and the VUB hydrograph follows seasonal precipitation patterns -peaking during the wet season (December to April) and declining slowly through the dry season (Drenkhan et al, 2015, EGESMA, Oshun et al, 2021. Glacier meltwater accounts for less than 2% of annual runoff in the VUB at larger watershed scales (Buytaert et al, 2017), with the vast majority of annual runoff coming from groundwater, and baseflow from the puna sustaining dry season flows (Fernandez-Palomino et al, 2021).…”

“…The community of Zurite relies entirely on humid puna-derived water resources for agricultural and municipal use, much of which drains from the URW. Water is sourced primarily from the diversion and distribution through traditional surface water canals is managed by a local water commission (Oshun et al, 2021). Although there are 4 small reservoirs, the combined storage capacity is approximately equivalent to one day's irrigation demand in the dry season.…”

“…To answer these questions, we collected hydrogeologic data over three water years (WY): WY2019 (1 September 2018 to 31 August 2019), WY2020 (1 September 2019 to 31 August 2020), and WY2021 (1 September 2020 to 31 August 2021). We employed an integrated local environmental knowledge approach, which incorporated traditional and western scientific approaches to knowledge production and is described in detail in Oshun et al (2021). The field campaigns occurred from June 2018 to September 2021 and focused on: 1) monitoring hydrologic inputs and outputs to calculate annual water balances; 2) determining spatiotemporal patterns in runoff through a novel campaign to measure discharge in nested subbasins ; 3) characterizing bofedal structure, installing monitoring wells, and employing borehole nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques to quantify the amount of water seasonally stored in bofedales seasonal water storage in bofedales.…”

Mapping Glacier Ablation With a UAV in the North Cascades: A Structure-from-Motion Approach

“…There is movement in the scientific community towards developing more co-produced science that incorporates local communities and Tribal Nations who have a vested interest in understanding the vulnerability of their ecosystems to climate change (e.g., Lemos et al, 2012;Wynecoop et al, 2019;Turnhout et al, 2020;Oshun et al, 2021). The Nooksack Indian Tribe has generously shared their 2020 season data for this study in the interest of scientific collaboration.…”