NEC06630 How does the Paramo capture and store water? The role of plants and people.

Páramos are high mountain grassland-peatland biomes (3000m-4000m) that cover a total area of circa 35700km2. They are crucial for the livelihoods and wellbeing of millions of people living in Colombia and neighbouring Northern Andean countries (Venezuela, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru). Páramos are the main source of water in these regions, are used for crop cultivation and grazing and contain a unique source of untapped genetic diversity. While the Páramos have the potential to support, through the exploitation of its biodiversity, local and regional development, the combined pressure of land use and climate change has already degraded many Páramo areas and their potential demise is a cause for concern for many, including local communities, regional and national policy and decision makers and researchers in Colombia. All agree that any future exploitation requires a sustainable approach and that the management of these systems should enhance the Páramo's resilience to climate change. However, there is still very much which is not known about the functioning of the Páramos and without this knowledge there is a risk that interventions which are designed to achieve sustainability and enhance resilience are not effective or worse detrimental. Páramos are described as sponges that capture and store water from the atmosphere. Few quantitative studies have investigated the mechanisms behind this process and even less is known about the relative role of the plants and the soil of this complex system. Also, Páramos are socio-ecological systems that have been shaped by the human populations that have inhabited them over several centuries. This interaction is continuing to date with local communities relying solely on the Páramo for their livelihoods. This interdisciplinary 3 year project aims to, jointly with Colombian collaborators, establish how the diversity of habitats and of plants within the Páramos contributes to water regulation, via direct storage in live and dead vegetation and via the supply of organic matter in the soil. We will carry out a large field and drone campaign in the Colombian Páramo Guantiva-la Rusia to collect and analyse data on plants, soil and hydrology. We will carry out satellite image analysis to map landscape scale land cover and peatland condition and improve models so that they better represent the hydrology of the ecosystem. The project will also identify how local Páramo inhabitants, particularly crop and livestock farmers, interact currently with the Páramo ecosystem through their day-to-day farming practices. We will invite local people to participate in workshops and storytelling to jointly discover how they understand they are affecting and are affected by the Páramos' water regulation. We will, as we learn more about the functioning of the Páramo, feedback our findings to the local people and so help them initiate more sustainable solutions.