Understanding the hydrology of tropical Andean ecosystems through an Andean network of basins

Abstract

During the last decade several initiatives aiming at conserving and protecting the water provision of Andean ecosystems have started. However, their application have faced a number of limitations from the technical side mainly due to the lack of knowledge of hydrological processes and Andean-specific developed and tested hydrological models for scenario analyses. The large variability found in ecosystems, climates and geomorphological settings makes hydrological research a complex task and answers to these societal problems therefore may take too long, unless a well coordinated collaboration between research centres, NGO’s and local governments take place. This manuscript outlines the goals of a regional initiative on participatory-based networking of data monitoring; describes how researchers can help local and regional stakeholders and vice-versa with data collection, processing, storage and dissemination; highlights the benefits of the collaboration for the scientific community and policy makers; and proposes measures to make the collaboration effective and sustainable.