2017 Tempisque WIGF Costa Rica Trip

This summer, the 2017 Water Institute Graduate Fellows Cohort participated in the 2018 UF Levin College of Law Costa Rica Program as part of their research and outreach. They are studying strategies to achieve watershed resilience in the Tempisque watershed. Tom Ankersen, the UF Law Costa Rica Program advisor, is a participating faculty member in the 2017 WIGF Cohort.

The WIGF students spent their time in Costa Rica seeing firsthand the watershed that they have been studying. They joined nine law students also participating in the program to explore how law and policy interact with the social, economic, and hydrologic systems of the region. In the last week of the program, the WIGF students’ Faculty Advisors joined the group to meet with local stakeholders at a 2-day workshop at the EARTH University in Northwestern Costa Rica. The workshop employed scenario analysis, a policy-focused decision tool, to map the future of the watershed, and the results of the analysis will guide the WIGF Cohort’s research agenda, as well as inform local decision-making.

For more information on the program and more detailed accounts of the group’s activities in Costa Rica, you can visit the UF Law Environmental and Land Use Law Program’s Facebook page.