Presenters-0721
From CSDMS
CSDMS 2026: Modeling Landscapes in Motion
Integrated hydrological modeling with Indigenous community partners
Abstract
Many disciplinary models focus on simulating just one aspect of the environment, such as groundwater flow or plant water uptake, but urgent threats to water such as climate change, land-use shifts, and contamination demand a more complex, interdisciplinary approach. In response, integrated hydrological and earth systems models have emerged, yet making reliable predictions with these remains a challenge because of the multiple physical domains, parameter types, and spatiotemporal scales that need to be simultaneously represented and linked. Different knowledge systems, such as Indigenous knowledge, take a different approach by starting out with a holistic view that first considers the environment as an interconnected system. In this presentation, I show that engaging with Indigenous partners in integrated hydrological research can help tackle unresolved modeling challenges, and importantly, ensures that models are implemented to benefit communities that are often ignored or exploited. As a conventionally trained, settler scientist, I will share two examples of engaging Indigenous partners in implementing integrated hydrological models; these efforts address questions important to their communities while also shedding new light on connections within the environment. One example focuses on watershed modeling with Ojibwe tribal partners around Manoomin (Ojibwe)/Psiη (Dakota)/Wild Rice lakes in the Upper Great Lakes region, and the second includes ecohydrological modeling with Kichwa partners in a tropical glacierized watershed in the Ecuadorian Andes. I will discuss technical and ethical considerations of merging Indigenous partners’ observations and knowledge with western scientific models, as well as the responsibilities of conducting research in good relations with Indigenous peoples and their lands.
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