During our fieldwork, we were successful in testing the setup of a few different measurements that can be used to understand the canopy water balance. Based on what we learned, we designed a long-term setup which is being implemented by Community Cloud Forest Conservation (CCFC) and Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala thanks to the financial support of S4S. This will be used to monitor changes in horizontal precipitation, evapotranspiration and water storage in the Cloud Forest of the Sierra Yalijux, the source of water for over a million people, including a handful of cities and many rural Q’eqchi’ Maya villages.
We wrapped up our Multidisciplinary Project in Guatemala with a presentation on our work for local water managers and members of the academic community. We brought global changes in climate into local focus and discussed how land use can amplify or reduce the problems it causes. Water committees in rural communities can visualize the recharge zones of the springs that feed their water distribution systems and identify strategies for integrated management and response to change. CCFC’s team has incorporated the results of our work into their capacity-building programs.
