1. SUstainable Management of water and human interactions on Andean Amazon River basins - SUMAAR An Andean Amazon Initiative sumbitted to IAI Remigio Galárraga-Sánchez

2. Introduction High altitude Andean headwater basins of the Amazon main source of water for growing population and development needs on the eastern slopes of the Andes. Few data are available to characterize these basins yet, increasingly; such data are needed to examine present and future scenarios for water resources that are critical for future development.

3. Introduction AARAM (CRN1) provided initial data and monitoring programs that began characterization of these basins to examine possible impacts of global change and development on social and economic activities. SUMAAR (CRN2) will continue and expand these initiatives by utilizing existing data and continued monitoring to model the present hydrological regimes and develop a number of future scenarios.

4. Introduction It will undertake socio-economic surveys that document the impact of these hydrological changes on the growing population and resources. Based on the information gathered by the project we will generate and propose watershed management strategies for natural resources sustainability.

5. General objective Continue documenting, monitoring, and modeling hydro-meteorological and socio- economical variables in Andean Amazon River basins of Peru, Colombia and Ecuador to determine their time-space variability and changes with respect to water availability and relation with human immigration and their socio-economic activities.

6. Specific objectives To study the annual, interannual and long- term hydro-climatological variability of selected AA river basins, including average and extreme hydrological regimes coming from melting glaciers; and to determine the influence of climate variability and change on stream flow and sediment loads.

7. To study the relationships between extreme flows (floods and low flows) and major elements of the regional climate such as both phases of ENSO: El Niño and La Niña, and other large-scale ocean- atmosphere phenomena. To quantify scaling properties of extreme river flows (low flows and floods) with respect to drainage area, for rivers in the study region using the recently developed methodology of Poveda et al.(2006),

8. To develop and apply rainfall-runoff models to asses and predict extreme discharges resulting from intense precipitation events on the upper Andean Amazon rivers. To study interactions between natural and social systems, as a consequence of climate variability and global change, including climate change and deforestation and their effects on extreme hydrological regimes of AA river basins.

9. Relevancy to LBA agenda This research proposal will benefit from the knowledge and scientific agenda of the LBA program, as the tropical Andes constitute the Amazon headwaters, simultaneously importing atmospheric water from the Amazon, and exporting surface water to it, but also from the experience gained with such type of international scientific cooperation. SUMAAR has a close relation to the new LBA phase II project in the sense that includes the human dimension aspect of an area that is the starting point of physical and human processes in the high Andes.

10. PROPOSAL TO SSC WE ASK THIS COMMITTE TO INCLUDE SUMAAR AS AN LBA ASSOCIATED PROJECT AND TO INCLUDE AS A RECOMMENDATION OF THE 19th SSC MEETING. WE ASK SSC FOR CONTINUING SUPPORT BEFORE IAI TO INCLUDE SUMAAR WITHIN THE CRN2 CALL. THANK YOU