Exploring inter- and transdisciplinary research on land use under climate change in the tropical Andes of Quito: the role of landscape history and local knowledge

Global challenges resulting from climate change, resource depletion, and land use change require local solutions that acknowledge the configuration and history of its landscapes and the related social-ecological processes. Particularly sensitive to climate change are high-mountain tropical regions. The Andean ecoregion, where Ecuador’s capital Quito is located, is home to c. 3 million people and host globally-important biodiversity hotspots. These include near-urban cloud forest remnants and unique páramo grasslands, characterized by their organic rich soils and water storage capacity of utmost importance for irrigation and drinking water in rural and urban areas.

We would like to discuss how we explored the potential to: 1) initiate inter- and transdisciplinary research on land use and landscape dynamics under global and local change, and 2) co-design this research by identifying the most pressing subtopics in the area surrounding Quito. Our research team includes researchers from Ecuadorian, German, and Polish research institutions as well as members of NGOs. Within these group, we had two in-person, a few online meetings and a three-week field visit that included two community-oriented workshops in summer 2024. We exchanged scientific and local perspectives, including those from community and NGO contexts, on “landscape” as a potential conceptual framework. Discussions focused on methodologies on “how to research together” and the exchange of knowledge on human and natural history, all within the context of a decolonial/political ecology framework.

We furthermore explored lakes and sedimentary deposits as archives for historical landscape dynamics, land use change and their transformation over time, as well as current ecosystem functioning using vegetation surveys with state-of-the-art remote sensing and field mapping. As a result, we identified future study areas and pressing topics that our inter- and transdisciplinary research can focus on, i.e., wildfires that intensify under climate change, water quality, soil erosion and volcanic eruption risks. With this initial phase of transdisciplinary research, we recognize high potential to co-create actionable knowledge that addresses the interconnectedness between societal and natural (or more-than-human) systems, and to contribute to tackling ongoing and future land use challenges in the tropical Andes.