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This paper aims to determine the economic and technical feasibility of developing a thermally enhanced digester in the Andean area using solar collectors. Communities in the rural area of the Andes lack access to electricity and other basic services which impact negatively on their everyday life and exposes them to harmful and inefficient fuels. Several experiences with anaerobic digestion prove that this technology could be applied in the Andean area, although its performance is limited due to low temperatures. To overcome this constraint, an enhanced digester was modelled and simulated using TRNSYS Software. The system consisted of two solar collectors, a storage tank and a digester with a wrapped-around heat exchanger. The average digester temperature in the simulation was 30.7 °C. The enhanced temperature was used in a model to calculate the daily biogas production. The Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return were calculated and confirm the economic viability of the project. The biogas production fully covers the requirements of the system for household cooking and lighting, making a significant social impact. This simulation indicates that it is technically possible to develop an enhanced digester in the Andean area that is economically viable as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alpine grassland vegetation supports globally important biodiversity and ecosystems that are increasingly threatened by climate warming and other environmental changes. Trait-based approaches can support understanding of vegetation responses to global change drivers and consequences for ecosystem functioning. In six sites along a 1314 m elevational gradient in Puna grasslands in the Peruvian Andes, we collected datasets on vascular plant composition, plant functional traits, biomass, ecosystem fluxes, and climate data over three years. The data were collected in the wet and dry season and from plots with different fire histories. We selected traits associated with plant resource use, growth, and life history strategies (leaf area, leaf dry/wet mass, leaf thickness, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, leaf C, N, P content, C and N isotopes). The trait dataset contains 3,665 plant records from 145 taxa, 54,036 trait measurements (increasing the trait data coverage of the regional flora by 420%) covering 14 traits and 121 plant taxa (ca. 40% of which have no previous publicly available trait data) across 33 families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the material, discursive, and biophysical dimensions of fuelscapes, or energy landscapes. Ethnographic and ecological fieldwork was conducted in the Machu Picchu Historic Sanctuary, Peru. Andean land use studies have focused on agricultural patterns such as vertical production zones. Fuelscapes are an important, energy-based means of producing and representing landscape. They show how uncultivated lands fit into livelihood strategies and reflect historic sedimentation of landscape. Fuelscapes are shaped by ecological characteristics, historic settlement patterns and property rights, gendered and intergenerational divisions in household labor, and state conservation policies. Conservation policies delimit fuelscapes to privilege live trees, but the resultant denudation of dead wood may carry implications for ecosystem health. This study elucidates how official policies intersect with household and communal resource use strategies to produce Andean fuelscapes. It provides insight into how uncultivated ecosystems fit into land use politics, practices, and representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Runoff from glacierised Andean river basins is essential for sustaining the livelihoods of millions of people. By running a high-resolution climate model over the two most glacierised regions of Peru we unravel past climatic trends in precipitation and temperature. Future changes are determined from an ensemble of statistically downscaled global climate models. Projections under the high emissions scenario suggest substantial increases in temperature of 3.6 °C and 4.1 °C in the two regions, accompanied by a 12% precipitation increase by the late 21st century. Crucially, significant increases in precipitation extremes (around 75% for total precipitation on very wet days) occur together with an intensification of meteorological droughts caused by increased evapotranspiration. Despite higher precipitation, glacier mass losses are enhanced under both the highest emission and stabilization emission scenarios. Our modelling provides a new projection of combined and contrasting risks, in a region already experiencing rapid environmental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new FAO Penman-Monteith reference evapotranspiration gridded dataset is introduced, called PISCOeo_pm. PISCOeo_pm has been developed for the 1981–2016 period at ~1 km (0.01°) spatial resolution for the entire continental Peruvian territory. The framework for the development of PISCOeo_pm is based on previously generated gridded data of meteorological subvariables such as air temperature (maximum and minimum), sunshine duration, dew point temperature, and wind speed. Different steps, i.e., (i) quality control, (ii) gap-filling, (iii) homogenization, and (iv) spatial interpolation, were applied to the subvariables. Based on the results of an independent validation, on average, PISCOeo_pm exhibits better precision than three existing gridded products (CRU_TS, TerraClimate, and ERA5-Land) because it presents a predictive capacity above the average observed using daily and monthly data and has a higher spatial resolution. Therefore, PISCOeo_pm is useful for better understanding the terrestrial water and energy balances in Peru as well as for its application in fields such as climatology, hydrology, and agronomy, among others. Measurement(s) reference evapotranspiration • air temperature • sunshine duration • dew point temperature • wind speed Technology Type(s) weather station Factor Type(s) reference evapotranspiration Sample Characteristic - Environment Climatology • Hydrology • Meteorology • Ecology • Earth Science Sample Characteristic - Location Peru • Andes [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Peruvian Andes are among the world's most important centers of origin for genetic diversity of crops and plants. Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) was domesticated in the Bolivian and Peruvian Andean region around Lake Titicaca. In situ conservation systems for quinoa germplasm and its wild relatives can still be found in the traditional systems of Peruvian farming communities. Quinoa crop wild relatives (CWRs), like the majority of CWRs of other agricultural species, are being affected by the considerable changes in the natural landscapes of the Andes. This article analyzes the presence and distribution of seven quinoa CWRs at the agroecosystem level and considers the social and environmental Andean contexts in which they are found. A qualitative research method based on participatory mapping in six local communities of the Puno region in Peru was applied to establish the presence and distribution of the species. We present the results that were confirmed with local actors on participatory GIS maps. Based on our analyses, we conclude that conservation programs should consider both permanent native meadows and cultivated land with their fallow cycles and plot borders. The diversity of the presence of quinoa CWRs is one result of the coexistence of these two land uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different water related risks such as lake outburst floods and water scarcity are typically assessed by separate methods and often by separate research communities. However, in a local context such as in mountain regions of the developing world different water risks are intertwined and shaped by multi-dimensional natural and socio-economic drivers. Progressing glacier melt and the associated growing number of lakes rises the threat of glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs); at the same time declining melt water supply changes the hydrological regime, resulting in changing water availability, especially during dry seasons. Here, we address this challenge by integratively assessing water scarcity and GLOF risks and their interactions for two study sites in glacierized catchments in the Cordillera Blanca and Urubamba in the Peruvian Andes. We used hydrological modelling, GLOF flow path modelling, and interviews with local people and technical experts to assess the hazard and risks of water scarcity and GLOFs. We incorporate perspectives of people living in those areas in order to gain a more comprehensive view on risks. While metrics of flood and water scarcity hazards are difficult to compare, we found insightful results using a comparative analysis of elements at risk from different water related hazards with different probabilities of occurrence. Furthermore, our study shows that considering the diverse local perspectives on risks as well as the social, cultural, economic and political context is essential to more successful and sustainable disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and integrated water management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]