Agricultural Heritage and Climate Adaptation in Yucatán, Mexico

This project develops out of a decade-long collaboration between archaeologists associated with the Proyecto Arqueológico Colaborativo del Oriente de Yucatán (including Maia Dedrick and Adolfo Iván Batún Alpuche) and the residents of Tahcabo, Yucatán (a small town in the municipality of Calotmul, near Tizimín). The town consists of several hundred residents, many of whom focus on agricultural production, and it is an area rich with past and present heritage (including archaeology). Conversations with experienced farmers from the town demonstrated that yield declines have become a widespread concern and that climate change is one factor contributing to the problem. In particular, such farmers perceive the unpredictability of precipitation and delay to the start of the rainy season as major impacts of climate change. For that reason, farmers may find it useful to have access to downscaled climate models through a functionality similar to what is available through the NicaAgua app. Another motivation is that the archaeologists currently maintain airborne laser imagery that may be useful to town residents’ land management practices, if they had easy access to them. Finally, heritage knowledge of agriculture is vast in Yucatán, and we hope to help inspire intergenerational transfer of such information even as many young people move into other professions.

Our approach is to develop a phone application that can share information from climate models, lidar visualizations and other maps relevant to land management, and aspects of traditional knowledge organized according to the phases of the agricultural cycle. This project began as a senior project for students in the School of Engineering and continues to be built on by SCU students completing capstone and senior projects. We want the phone application to be as responsive as possible to community member needs. While initial development has been undertaken under the guidance of Batún Alpuche and Dedrick, future iterations will incorporate input and design guidance from members of the intended audience (residents of the town of Tahcabo). Collaborative discussions and workshops will be most easily facilitated through the travel of SCU staff, faculty, and students to Yucatán.