NERC Discipline Hopping for Discovery Science

Theme: Water, Food and Social Organisation in the Peruvian Andes

The current and future impact of climate change on agro-pastoral farming systems, and their water supplying ecosystems, remains poorly understood in the Peruvian Andes. This is a significant issue given the known vulnerability to climate variability and extreme weather of the region, which is already having a significant impact on agricultural productivity, compounded by chronic poverty in many rural areas and the need for better government-led strategic planning. Despite steady economic growth nationally over the last 15 years a high percentage of the rural population in Peru (44% in 2017) continue to live in chronic poverty. Growing insecurities over climate change are exacerbated by lower educational and economic opportunities in rural areas, and outmigration. Better approaches are urgently required therefore to enable us to plan sustainable management practices that enhance climate resilience in conjunction with positive economic outcomes for farmers, aiding decision-makers to better understand and debate future adaptive strategies. We feel this is best achieved through collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches drawing upon methodologies developed in the humanities, and social and natural sciences, with expertise provided by local communities, NGOs and university staff.

Our discipline-hopping workshops will bring together two Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) based in Peru with University of Reading staff from a range of disciplines. We will conduct four workshops (face to face at the University, and online for those remaining in Peru); the themes of the workshops have been determined by the NGOs in consultation with local communities in Peru. The purpose of this ‘bottom-up’ approach is to ensure that those undertaking development projects, and those most affected by environmental, social and economic challenges, in Peru have the opportunity to outline and explore approaches and methods to address these challenges with the academic community at the University.

Theme

Water storage and use. Using traditional/ancestral ecohydrological knowledge to produce nature-based or ‘soft engineering’ approaches to enhance water storage in the landscape for later use is critical due to climate change. Water availability significantly affects food production, potentially limiting farming income and jeopardizing rural families’ food security.  Questions of interest: What is the future of water availability? What strategy would effectively tackle this problem? What is the potential of different water sowing and harvesting systems? What remuneration mechanism for ecosystem services could be explored?

We will also discuss two cross cutting themes: Knowledge-inclusive management between local communities, NGOs and universities, and Community territorial management to stimulate community-driven and bottom-up planning, involving participatory mapping, diagnosis and training.

Programme

• Welcome and Introduction: Prof Nicholas Branch
• Workshop convenors: Prof Andrew Wade and Prof Anne Verhoef
• Presentation: Diana Santos (NGO Eclosio)
• Presentation: Douglas Walsh (NGO Asociación Andina Cusichaca)
• Lunch
• Breakout Groups