Citation:

Hughes, R. AND Phil Kaufmann. Chapter 9. Benefits of International Collaboration. Chapter 9, Callisto, M.; Hughes, R. M.; Lopes, J.M.; Castro, M.A (ed.), Ecological Conditions in Hydropower Basins. Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais (CEMIG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil, , 35-45, (2014).

Impact/Purpose:

The USEPA’s NARS survey designs and field methods are being applied in large basin stream surveys in countries outside of the U.S. These applications not only provide valuable tests of the NARS approaches, but enhance International cooperation and generate new understandings of natural and anthropogenic controls on biota and physical habitat in streams. These understandings not only aid interpretation of the condition of streams in the regions surveyed, but also refine approaches for interpreting aquatic resource surveys elsewhere. In this book chapter, Robert Hughes and Philip Kaufmann describe the benefits derived from working with Brazilian colleagues on a multi university, multiyear, and multi basin ecological assessment and how those experiences were transmitted more broadly. The project, still in-progress, assesses the environmental condition of streams and reservoirs in four hydropower watersheds along a gradient of human disturbance in the Brazilian Cerrado biome. Land use, percent natural cover, riparian vegetation cover, physical habitat, and fish and benthos richness were evaluated in four basins considering both headwater streams (N=160) and the littoral region of reservoirs (N=160), totaling 320 sites, where over 140 fish species and 100 benthic taxa were captured and studied as bioindicators of environmental condition. North American protocols (USEPA) were adapted to South American Cerrado environmental conditions and validated to assess the ecological changes. The benefits of this scientific collaboration extend far beyond the objectives of the actual research and basin assessment, and have spawned new collaborations beyond Brazil.

Description:

In this chapter, we share what we have learned from working with our Brazilian colleagues on a multi university, multiyear, and multi basin ecological assessment and how those experiences were transmitted more broadly. These lessons (each of which is described in subsequent paragraphs) included 1) learning about markedly different ecosystems; 2) values to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) of testing monitoring protocols in those ecosystems; 3) applying lessons from the CEMIG (Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais) project to research on other continents and elsewhere in Brazil; 4) advantages of academic team research; 5) benefits of corporate-sponsored research and federal student scholarships; 6) communicating with the general public; 7) the research web that has developed out of our work in Brazil; and 8) experiencing Brazilian culture.

Record Details: