Chris Bacon and students travel to farming communities in Nicaragua to continue research on food and water security.
This summer, ESS associate professor Chris Bacon (Environmental Studies) spent a month in Nicaragua continuing to work on a study analyzing how farmers cope with environmental hazards as well as food and water insecurity. Three SCU students, including Lauren Cloward (Environmental Studies & Political Science '16), Claire Smoker (Environmental Studies & Anthropology '17), and Kim Grandi (Environmental Studies & Spanish, Latin American Studies '19) joined Chris in Nicaragua. This team collaborated with SCU colleagues, a partner organization (ASDENIC), and local community members to design a farmer survey. The team also conducted focus groups and interviews, and took stream flow and water quality measurements. This fall, Chris will continue working with Bill Sundstrom (Economics), Iris Stewart-Frey (ESS), and Ed Maurer (Civil Engineering) as they integrate this data with other findings to analyze farmers’ vulnerability to food and water shortages in the context of climatic and market variability and change. They also plan to hire a postdoctoral researcher and present results during the annual meetings of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association of Geographers.
Image of Lauren, Chris and Eveling, an ASDENIC employee, take stream flow measurements (Credit: Kim Grandi)