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.
Highlights
In the high-elevation Andes of Perú, agrarian communities, many of which are Indigenous, depend on local water resources for sustenance
We present a framework for explicitly including the coproduction of knowledge from scientific experts, students, and local knowledge-holders in the rural Andean village of Zurite and argue that such a framework is critical for sustainable water development
To develop sustainable water management within the Indigenous community of Zurite, which depends on water originating from the puna for sustenance, we used an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge coproduction that integrates the perspective of
Summary
In the high-elevation Andes of Perú, agrarian communities, many of which are Indigenous, depend on local water resources for sustenance. Traditional Indigenous practices, dating to pre-Inca times, govern land management and aquifer recharge, and inform local water use and community water allocations (e.g., see [10]) These activities result in complex spatiotemporal effects on the water supply and create challenges for the study of water resources and the implementation of sustainable water management in the region. We argue that, in order for socio-hydrology to link natural and social science and to result in community-level adaptation to climate change, we must include a sixth factor: the collaborative coproduction of knowledge. Including knowledge coproduction in the socio-hydrology framework, when using an interdisciplinary, applied, and community-minded approach, provides a platform for knowledge transfer and mutual learning between all stakeholders in the project, and is critical for achieving communitylevel resiliency to climate change such as local sustainable land and water management
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