The University of Michigan has numerous labs and researchers dedicated to investigating climate change. The Michigan Daily explored how some groups are using their research to address the challenges of climate change. You can read more stories from the project here.
Transboundary waters present unique challenges in climate research and policy. The Global Center for Climate Change and Transboundary Waters, a multi-institutional organization housed at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, aims to study the hydroclimate of these regions while generating resilience among communities that rely on transboundary waters for resource needs.
Established in 2023, the GCTW focuses its research around three areas: hydro-climate modeling, ecosystem and water quality and climate-ready communities and transboundary governance. Through the intersection of these research clusters, the GCTW hopes to survey the current and future impacts of climate change and in turn create opportunities for better-informed policy and governance.
Andrew Gronewold, Environment and Sustainability professor who serves as the GCTW’s lead investigator, spoke to The Michigan Daily about the importance of the center as an internationally-oriented entity.
“We start off with the recognition that transboundary basins around the world often have multiple sovereign nations, not just two, but multiple sovereign nations within them, some might be Indigenous, that have a stake in the water and understanding the water as a resource,” Gronewold said.
Gronewold said the specific types of research conducted by the center are applicable on a global scale, but are particularly focused on addressing challenges in transboundary regions.
“We believe that in almost anywhere you go in the world, but especially in transboundary areas, having foundational hydrological and climatological model and data you can use for making decisions is critical,” Gronewold said. “Developing that in a transboundary area with multiple nations, it can be really hard, and so we have a unique expertise in that.”
The GCTW receives funding and participation both from U.S. and Canadian institutions and focuses on a variety of regions including the Great Lakes. Kyle Whyte, Environment and Sustainability professor and co-principal investigator for the GCTW, spoke to The Daily about his research, which uses GCTW resources to restore a collaborative regional network of the Indigenous tribes that make up the Great Lakes region to monitor the effects of climate change on water.
Whyte emphasized the existing relationships between Great Lakes tribes and the wealth of scientific research being conducted within each community. Whyte said the GCTW can play an important role in forming a more cohesive network that will better serve individual tribal communities.
“The key challenge is that all the 35 tribes, each one is a different size, different population, different land area,” Whyte said. “They use different monitoring methods. They have different levels of training. So part of what we’re going to try to do, through meetings, through other networking activities, is to try to create a plan for how best all of the tribes can work together and create more of a regional, tribal picture of what climate and water issues are affecting tribal communities the most.”
Gronewold said recognizing the importance of different forms of climate knowledge is vital.
“Especially when working with tribal and Indigenous partners, we want to recognize that there are a lot of different ways of knowing when it comes to science, historical stories or reference points that add a lot to the understanding of water systems and ecological systems,” Gronewold said.
Whyte said taking cues about research directions and future uses from Indigenous communities leads to the production of higher-quality, more useful research.
“When the Indigenous people are able to control the research questions that are asked, are able to govern the research methods, and essentially able to produce research that they know is going to matter to them … it produces better research and research that tribal leaders can use when they advocate for new laws and policies,” Whyte said.
Gronewold said the Great Lakes also set a precedent for transboundary water governance in other regions, avoiding the conflicts regarding water seen in many other places.
“We try to learn a lot about the Great Lakes region, in the U.S. and Canada,” Gronewold said. “What is it about those treaties and compacts about water in that area and those areas that work well?”
One of the regions to which these concepts are being applied is the Rio Grande basin. Rackham student Vianey Rueda, a doctoral student in Gronewold’s lab whose research is part of the GCTW’s work, studies the applications of hydroclimate data with regards to water usage in the Rio Grande basin.
Rueda told The Daily her research focuses on ways to update the 1944 water treaty between the United States and Mexico regarding the utilization of the Rio Grande to reflect the economic, population and climate changes the region has undergone.
“There’s now this misalignment in what were the negotiating parameters in the past and what the enforcing parameters of these treaties are today,” Rueda said. “There is a need to modernize them in order to allow these formal agreements to adapt to their current conditions, and to do so in a way that is equitable and just for the people living in these basins, in a way that is also sustainable for the hydrologic health of the basins themselves and is really also politically stable.”
Rueda’s research focuses on understanding the hydrologic conditions of the Rio Grande basin, surveying the community’s economic needs and understanding the necessary policy changes needed to update the treaty. Together, Rueda said these aspects of her research can provide a better picture for the future of the Rio Grande basin.
“The point is to try to see at what points can we, as researchers or as collaborators with communities, intervene to create sustainable solutions for the future,” Rueda said.
One of the important aspects of transboundary waters research is shoreline sustainability and usage. Richard Norton, Program in the Environment professor and co-principal investigator for the GCTW, researches the impacts of land use and development on coastlines.
In an interview with The Daily, Norton described the conflicting philosophies around coastline resilience.
“Natural shorelines adapt most quickly, and they get back to an equilibrium and they continue to provide ecological services,” Norton said. “So from an ecologist perspective, coastal resilience means letting nature do its thing, but from a property owner’s perspective, (someone) who’s built a house close to water, resilience to them means stopping those natural processes so that the beach doesn’t erode away and they don’t lose their home into the lake.”
One of Norton’s hopes for the future of the GCTW is that the center will be able to facilitate a greater level of preparedness for the eventual climate-led migrations, particularly to the Great Lakes region, which many consider to be a climate haven.
“My hope is we can get folks through centers like the (GCTW), to kind of start thinking ahead and realizing maybe folks are going to come moving in,” Norton said. “Yeah, they’re going to want to be close to the water. Let’s do a better job of protecting the resources before they get here.”
Gronewold expanded on the importance of the center as a way to bring together vital climate research, while increasing the visibility, and therefore the usefulness, of the research being produced by the GCTW.
“I think that when you organize research into a center or an institute or some type of hub, it actually increases its natural attractive power,” Gronewold said. “People see it. It’s something they can identify with and say, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ And if it doesn’t have that centralized theme, sometimes people might miss it. So it’s really been a huge advantage to us to grab additional team members, collaborate more (and) to have this center in the first place.”
Daily Staff Reporter Bronwyn Johnston can be reached atjbronwyn@umich.edu.
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