Active Projects
The Amazon Waters Initiative
Our team is part of the Amazon Waters Initiative, which aims to co-produce and compile knowledge about fish and aquatic ecosystems with riparian human communities across the Amazon Basin. We ask: Where and when do fish migrate in the Amazon? And, what are the environmental conditions associated with those migrations, especially water quality and water quality?
As part of this effort, we are collaborating with a conservation technology start-up, Conservify, and numerous Amazonian communities on the design and implementation of a low-cost, high-tech monitoring kit that measures water quality, water level, and climatic conditions. Simultaneously, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has adapted their eBird platform to allow for tracking of fishes, through a new application called ICTIO. Overall, these efforts aim to improve scientific understanding of Amazonian freshwater systems, drawing on the local knowledge and observations of thousands of people across the Amazon.
Global Importance of Amazon Freshwaters
The importance of Amazonian freshwater systems and the consequences of their ongoing alteration (e.g., by dams, road crossings, climate change) transcends the boundaries of the Amazon Basin. However, critical linkages between Amazonian freshwater systems and global climate, the ocean, economies, and social-ecological systems, remain largely unquantified. This collaborative effort aims to examine the contributions of Amazonian freshwaters to global environmental, social, and economic systems, and examine how factors external to the Amazon can influence both the transformation and the protection of Amazonian freshwater ecosystems.
Importance of Andes-to-Amazon river connectivity
The Andean Amazon region is a global center of species richness and endemism across many taxonomic groups, and its rivers provide vital connections between high elevation areas of the Andes and the lowland Amazon. For example, Andean Amazon rivers supply massive quantities of sediments, nutrients, and organic matter to the lowland Amazon, while also acting as pathways for movement of migratory fishes. Andean origin rivers also factor into cosmologies of many Amazonian peoples; many indigenous groups recognize important cultural features of rivers that connect them with ancestors. Tropical Rivers Lab's research explores the many facets of Andes-to-Amazon linkages using both ecological and social science approaches.
