The HERB Initiative : Ecohydrology and Regional Biodiversity.

The HERB project in Colombia is a collaborative programme between the Department of Geography, Kings College London, UK, the Universidad del Cauca, the Instituto de Investigacion de Recursos Biologicos "Alexander Von Humboldt" of the Colombian Ministry of Environment, CIAT and a number of other research groups in Colombia. The project employs field monitoring, geographical information systems and computer modelling to further understand the structure and function of tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF) ecosystems .

In particular the project is examining : (a) environmental controls on the distribution of species and of biodiversity, (b) hydrological and biophysical processes in TMCFs, (c) the process of land use change in the hillsides of Latin America, (d) the impact of land use change on hydrological and biophysical processes in TMCF, (e) the impact of climate change on hydrological and biophysical processes in TMCF. The project is building an environmental monitoring capacity at a number of reserves in the Pacific Cloud forest of Colombia, particularly El Centro de Estudios Ambientales del Pacifico TAMBITO (Cauca), southern Colombia.