Santiago Lopez has three new publications on climate and land use

IAS faculty members Santiago Lopez and Jin-Kyu Jung published “A hybrid-epistemological approach to climate change research: Linking scientific and smallholder knowledge systems in the Ecuadorian Andes” in the journal Anthropocene. In this article, they use a hybrid epistemological framework that integrates scientific and local knowledge systems, methodological approaches, and geographic scopes to shed light on climate change in the equatorial Andes as reported by scientific and local knowledge systems, and understand the role that climate factors play on land use and agricultural change in natural resource dependent communities in the region.

Lopez also published “The socio-ecological systems of southeastern Ecuador: Processes and patterns of land use change,” in Nature and Society: Socio-Ecological perspectives on Global Changes in Latin America. This chapter analyzes current resource use conflicts in Western Amazonia and demonstrates that indigenous peoples in the area are exposed to constant external pressures exerted by powerful entities such as national and multinational resource extraction corporations, religious organizations, and conservation groups that may radically change existing socio-environmental relationships in the area.

Finally, Lopez and IAS alum, Christopher Wright and Paulette Costanza, published “Environmental change in the equatorial Andes: Linking climate, land use, and land cover transformations” in the journal Remote Sensing Applications: Environment and Society. In this article, the authors use remote sensing techniques to analyze land use and land cover changes in the Ecuadorian Andes. Some of the changes in the land cover are strongly linked to recent decadal temperature changes and the authors recommend adaptation measures that take into account a new restructuring of the natural landscape.