Agua Salud

is an experimental platform designed to study the ecosystem services provided by tropical forests and how they change with land use and environmental change.

Our studies of ecosystem processes provide the knowledge necessary to predict global change effects on the goods and services that secure lives and livelihoods and build resilient societies.

The importance of watersheds

A watershed is an area of land bounded by ridges, hills, and slopes where all the water from rainfall drains into a single body of water, be it a stream, river or a lake. A healthy watershed is an important natural resource for people and wildlife, and provides many ecosystem services, like abundant clean water.

The Panama Canal Watershed is the main provider of drinking water for 2 million people living within and next to the watershed. Rainfall falling within the watershed drives the Panama Canal and is thus an economic engine for the country and essential to global commerce.

Our Purpose

Sustainability science in the service of

Optimizing 
reforestation

Restoring degraded landscapes

Carbon sequestration

Increased dry season stream flow

Biodiversity

SUPPORTING NATURE-BASED ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES

Smart reforestation®

Growing human populations and a changing climate requires efficient use of landscapes to secure human well-being, particularly on infertile soils and degraded lands.

Smart reforestation uses scientific research to optimize reforestation efforts, by planting the right tree species in the right place, at the right time and for the right reasons.

Learn more about what we do

Commitment to long-term research

The Agua Salud Project takes the long view allowing researchers to study ecosystem dynamics over long periods thus capturing infrequent events, such as severe droughts and floods, events that may disproportionately affect ecosystem processes. The platform affords a more complete understanding necessary to developing sustainable solutions with applications throughout the tropics. Research pillars include:

Hydrological research

Secondary forest dynamics

Integration

Plantations and other planted lands

Learn more ABOUT OUR RESEARCH

Project members

Agua Salud is a unique, multidisciplinary, long-term research platform that attracts scientists and collaborators from all over the world.

Meet the Team

Research Facility

The Agua Salud research facility was first established in the 1980s, in the areas around the Panama Canal Watershed, about 50 km northwest of Panama City in Colón Province. Visit the Agua Salud research facility website for more information.

visit facility website

“Agua Salud is unmatched in scope and scale. The largest study of tropical secondary forest of its kind, long-term restoration studies, and stream flow monitoring provide essential insights and opportunities necessary to advance sustainability science.”

Jeff Hall

Agua Salud project director
and lead scientist

Applying what we’ve learned

Agua Salud has its roots in both the Panama Canal Watershed Monitoring Project and PRORENA, a native species reforestation project designed to study the biophysical and socio-economic barriers to native tree species reforestation

But how do we have an impact beyond?

We are mobilizing knowledge into action and taking smart reforestation across Panama and the world.

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Education and outreach

The Agua Salud Project seeks to establish partnerships and collaborations for community science and education programs, to drive collective action and solutions for a more resilient and sustainable future.

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