ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how current US interests are negatively influenced to understand the paths of influence of ecological and social change. The strategic importance to US global interests of financing critical water infrastructure, including for water storage, disaster risk mitigation, urban water and wastewater projects, cannot be overstated. Ecological change carries with it costs for society and potentially new opportunities. The transmission of ecological change through the many human systems of a given society eventually reaches down to community and household levels. The distillation offered in this chapter begins with a succinct statement of the different ecological changes experienced in the 14 geographies under consideration. Given the intimate dependence of food production and rural livelihoods on stable water availability, it is not surprising that the agricultural sector is among the most immediately affected by ecological change. The declining viability of rural livelihoods across Central America's Northern Triangle has spawned a sharp exodus from rural areas into the region's urban areas.
