Understanding the hydrology of tropical Andean ecosystems through an Andean network of basins

During the last decade several initiatives aiming at conserving and protecting the water provision of Andean ecosystems have started. However, their implementation has faced a number of limitations on the technical side, mainly due to the lack of knowledge of hydrological processes and Andean-specific developed and tested hydrological models for scenario analyses. The large variability found in ecosystems, climates and geomorphological settings makes hydrological research a complex task and therefore finding answers to these societal problems may take too long, unless a well-coordinated collaboration between research centres, NGOs and local governments takes place. This manuscript outlines the goals of a regional initiative on participatory-based networking of data monitoring; describes how researchers can help local and regional stakeholders and vice versa with data collection, processing, storage and dissemination; highlights the benefits of the collaboration for the scientific community and policy makers; and proposes measures to make the collaboration effective and sustainable.