A SAFER integration of aquatic ecosystem risk assessment across the Americas

ALFONSO, BELEN; BERTONI, BELÉN; COSTILLA, PAULA; FACUNDO SCORDO; SEITZ CARINA; SERNA ZAPATA, YULIANA; PAULA ZAPPERI; JAMES A. RUSAK

Montreal

Workshop; NSERC Canadian Network for Aquatic Ecosystem Services 2nd Annual Meeting & HQP Workshop; 2014

Université de Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

SAFER (Sensing the Americas? Freshwater Ecosystem Risk) from Climate Change is a panAmerican interdisciplinary network integrating researchers, students and technology. SAFER?s main objectives are to: 1) study continental aquatic ecosystems as "sentinels", "sensors" and "integrators" of climate change and variability, 2) accurately assess triggers, boundary conditions and rates of change that put ecosystem services at risk across the Americas, and 3) designmanagement and mitigation strategies that are technically and economically feasible as well as culturally acceptable.We present a sampling of the diversity of SAFER student projects in watershed nodes that stretch from Canada to Chile. This research examines not only present conditions, but also the past and future and involves ecosystems from different biomes that vary among regions along latitudinal and altitudinal gradients, within regions from watersheds to lake compartments, and over timescales from millennia to minutes. Sociology, anthropology, geology, biology, paleolimnology, hydrometeorology and physical limnology are all applied as tools for theevaluation of project objectives. This multidisciplinary approach at different scales of time and space has, as its ultimate aim, the identification of dynamic trends in Americas? aquatic ecosystems, their spatial, socio-economic and cultural variability and the possible risks associated with anthropogenic, climate and environmental change.