ESE: Collaborative Research: Spatial Resilience of Agriculturalists to Coupled Ecological and Hydrological Variability in Rural Zambia

ESE：合作研究：赞比亚农村地区农民对生态和水文耦合变化的空间复原力

• 批准号: 1026334
• 负责人: Kelly Caylor
• 金额: $ 35万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-10-01 至 2015-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1026334&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: ESE; Collaborative; Research; Spatial; Resilience

Rural livelihoods in many parts of the world are dramatically affected by climate variability and its corresponding impact on water availability and provision of ecosystem services. This is particularly the case in the semi-arid tropics (SAT), which contain 22% of the world's population and high concentrations of chronic poverty and inadequate food consumption. Much of the vulnerability of smallholders within the SAT is driven by surface hydrological dynamics; both directly through rainfall variability and indirectly through additional human- or climate-induced land and water degradation. When crop yields decline due to insufficient or in some cases excessive precipitation, households adopt various coping strategies to survive, many of which have an explicitly spatial dimension. Tom Evans from the Department of Geography at Indiana University and Kelly Caylor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Princeton University examine the resilience of smallholders in Zambia to climate variability by examining the spatial patterns of water availability and agricultural decision-making. The project particularly focuses on the diversity of coping strategies that smallholders in different locations employ to survive periods of crop failure such as skipping meals, seeking off-farm work opportunities or relying on food aid. The decision and option to choose different coping mechanisms depends on a complex set of social and ecological conditions such as precipitation patterns, surface topography, the spatial distribution of land holdings, social norms within a community and the regional availability of food aid. This project will examine these complex dynamics in two regions of Zambia that present a range of hydrological/climate regimes and socio-economic conditions. Specifically, we will focus on one province with low annual precipitation and relatively frequent periods of drought, and a second province with moderate annual rainfall and less severe seasonal drought.This research will lead to new understanding of the relationship between hydrological dynamics and the ability of smallholders to respond to climate variability in the semi-arid tropics. While a substantial amount of research has addressed the resilience of systems to understand how societies cope with social or ecological disturbances, the spatial dimensions of resilience have not been fully explored. The results from this research will identify what coping strategies smallholders use in different land use and hydrological contexts and articulate the spatial dimensions of those coping strategies. This project will also develop new methods to identify 'hotspots' of vulnerability given specific scenarios for future climate variability that has implications for development initiatives and food aid distribution activities.

世界许多地方的农村生计受到气候变异性及其对水的可用性和生态系统服务提供的相应影响。 在半干旱热带（SAT）中，情况尤其如此，其中包含22％的人口和高浓度的慢性贫困和粮食消费不足。 SAT中小农的大部分脆弱性是由表面水文动力学驱动的。直接通过降雨可变性，并间接通过其他人类或气候引起的土地和水退化。当由于不足或在某些情况下，农作物产量下降时，家庭采用各种应对策略来生存，其中许多人具有明确的空间维度。 普林斯顿大学土木工程系地理系的汤姆·埃文斯（Tom Evans）和凯利·凯勒（Kelly Caylor）研究了赞比亚小农户对气候变异性的韧性，通过检查水的可用性和农业决策的空间模式。 该项目尤其着重于在不同地点使用的应对策略的多样性，以生存农作物衰竭时期，例如跳过饭菜，寻求非农业工作机会或依靠粮食援助。 选择不同应对机制的决定和选择取决于一组复杂的社会和生态条件，例如降水模式，地形地形，土地持有的空间分布，社区内的社会规范以及粮食援助的区域可用性。 该项目将在赞比亚的两个区域检查这些复杂的动态，这些动态介绍了一系列水文/气候制度和社会经济条件。 具体而言，我们将重点关注一个年度降水较低和相对频繁的干旱期，第二个降雨量和季节性较低的省份。这项研究将导致对水文动力学与小农之间对响应半偏见的热带气候变化的能力之间的关系的新了解。 尽管大量的研究已经解决了系统如何应对社会或生态障碍的系统的弹性，但尚未充分探索弹性的空间维度。 这项研究的结果将确定小农在不同土地使用和水文环境中使用哪些应对策略，并阐明这些应对策略的空间维度。 该项目还将开发新的方法来识别脆弱性的“热点”，鉴于未来气候变异性的特定情况，这对开发计划和粮食援助分配活动具有影响。