GEO Mountains Workshop: Interdisciplinary Monitoring, Data, and Capacity Sharing Across the Andes

Summary

This event is one of a series of engagements that GEO Mountains is undertaking during 2023 under the Adaptation at Altitude Programme.

The primary aim of the workshop is to provide a platform to bring together data providers and data users from a range of disciplines related to climate change and its impacts on environmental, ecological, and social systems across the Andes with a view to ultimately informing effective climate change adaptation solutions.  

Three specific themes are proposed: 

1. Exploring prospects for supporting ongoing efforts towards the establishment of a regional network or networks of “Mountain Observatories” (MOs), which are multi-disciplinary and multi-method hubs, super-sites, or data rich regions at or across which long-term monitoring is conducted and training activities / student research projects are focused, with the resultant observations ideally being shared with the wider community; 
2. Establishing stronger links, understanding, and exchange of data and capacities between the research community and national hydrometeorological (and other environmental monitoring) agencies and local decision makers;
3. Identifying opportunities to combine, integrate, or otherwise exploit existing datasets to address key outstanding scientific, practical, or policy-related issues via joint projects, especially related to the incorporation of socio-economic data.

Event format

The workshop will take a mixed format, with short invited presentations interspersed with ample opportunity for open discussion in small groups. The workshop will seek to develop a comprehensive overview of what currently exists by way of cross-disciplinary in situ monitoring, which could eventually help refine GEO Mountains’ In Situ Inventory.

The workshop also seeks to explore opportunities for embedding students and Early Career Researchers (ECRs) into ongoing monitoring activities, as well as sharing capacities, equipment, and data between sites. The potential to increase the standardisation of protocols and instrumentation for certain types of measurements across multiple sites may be discussed. 

Expected participants include scientists and practitioners working on in situ monitoring (across multiple disciplines), remote sensing, climate modelling / reanalysis topics (e.g. downscaling and bias correction), climate change impacts modelling (e.g. on hydrology, the cryosphere, and biosphere), climate-related natural hazard and risk quantification, citizen science (across various disciplines), and societal / economic data. If possible, some individuals responsible for the implementation of mitigation / adaptation measures and other decision-makers will also be invited. This broad list reflects the cross-disciplinary / integrated and “multi-method” remit of GEO Mountains.

Agenda and Speakers

For the full agenda and list of speakers, please visit the GEO Mountains website.

Registration details

Online participants can still register and will receive directly the Zoom link to participate. The flyer of the workshop can be downloaded here.