CNH-Ex: Investigating the Dynamic Intersections Among Economic Development, Urbanization, and Forest Degradation

CNH-Ex：调查经济发展、城市化和森林退化之间的动态交叉点

• 批准号: 1413999
• 负责人: Julie Silva
• 金额: $ 24.98万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-06-15 至 2019-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1413999&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CNH; Ex; Investigating; Dynamic; Intersections

This project will investigate how economic and environmental changes affect the relationships among urban energy demands, urban and rural livelihoods, and the health of ecosystems that urban residents rely on for critical resources. The project will focus on issues associated with the complex ways in which human responses to changing demographic, economic, and environmental conditions lead to local-level decisions that can have significant impacts on the ways in which urban areas and the resource systems on which they depend function. The project will help develop new theoretical insights into what incentivizes human behavior regarding natural resource use under rapidly changing economic, demographic, and environmental contexts, and it will enhance methodological capabilities to identify changes in ecosystems in locales that traditionally have not been subject to ongoing monitoring. The project also will improve capabilities to forecast patterns of resource supply and demand related to changing socioeconomic and environmental conditions. The project has the potential to benefit society by informing policies that aim to combat environmental degradation and facilitate sustainable urban growth. The project will yield valuable data that will be made readily accessible through institutionally maintained archives, thereby facilitating future research, and it will provide special graduate student education and training opportunities. This project is supported by the NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Program.Recent scientific research has identified poverty, environmental degradation, and extreme weather as key drivers of urbanization in Africa and in many other parts of the developing world. Although only 30 percent of the African population lived in urban centers in 2000, this percentage is projected to double by 2050, with the majority of growth occurring in small- to medium-sized cities. Given the heavy reliance on charcoal as an energy source in African cities, rapid urbanization likely will increase forest degradation. This project will investigate interactions among urban and rural livelihoods and the health of the Miombo woodland ecosystems. Miombo woodlands are the most extensive forested ecosystem in Africa, covering 2.7-million square-km throughout eight southern African countries. The researchers will investigate how local-level decisions regarding charcoal production and consumption in changing economic and environmental contexts influence rates of forest degradation in Mozambique's Miombo woodlands. They will examine the charcoal trade in Tete, a mid-sized but rapidly growing city, to analyze how simultaneous economic and environmental change impact the well-being of people and the landscapes in which they live. They will integrate socioeconomic analysis and ecosystem modeling to better understand forest degradation in poorer regions that are rapidly integrating into the global economy. The results of the socioeconomic analyses will enable the refinement of an ecosystem model that accounts for consumer and producer preferences in charcoal production systems and their impact on forest degradation rates. The model will be used to simulate charcoal-driven forest degradation under various social, economic, and environmental scenarios in order to identify patterns that could compromise the sustainable use of Miombo woodlands and the well-being of urban and rural residents. Although focusing on a specific case study in Mozambique, many facets of the analysis will be of value in understanding coupled natural and human system dynamics in other nations and ecosystems.

该项目将调查经济和环境变化如何影响城市能源需求，城市和农村生计以及城市居民依靠为关键资源所依赖的生态系统健康的关系。 该项目将重点关注与人类对不断变化的人口，经济和环境条件的复杂方式相关的问题，导致地方层面的决策，这些决策可能对城市地区及其依赖资源系统的方式产生重大影响。 该项目将有助于发展新的理论见解，以激励人类在迅速变化的经济，人口和环境环境下对自然资源使用的行为的激励，并将增强方法论能力，以确定传统上不受持续监测的地方的生态系统变化。 该项目还将提高与不断变化的社会经济和环境条件相关的资源供应和需求模式的能力。 该项目有可能通过告知旨在打击环境退化并促进可持续城市增长的政策来使社会受益的潜力。 该项目将产生有价值的数据，这些数据将通过机构维护的档案易于访问，从而促进未来的研究，并将提供特殊的研究生教育和培训机会。 该项目得到了耦合的自然和人类系统（CNH）计划的NSF动态。当时的科学研究已经确定了贫困，环境退化和极端天气是非洲和发展中国家许多其他地区城市化的关键驱动因素。 尽管在2000年，只有30％的非洲人口居住在城市中心，但预计到2050年，这一比例将翻一番，大部分增长发生在中小型城市中。 鉴于对非洲城市的能源非常依赖木炭，快速的城市化可能会增加森林的退化。 该项目将调查城市和农村生计之间的互动以及Miombo Woodland生态系统的健康。 Miombo林地是非洲最广泛的森林生态系统，在整个南部八个非洲国家中占地270万平方公里。 研究人员将调查在不断变化的经济和环境环境中有关木炭生产和消费的地方层面的决定如何影响莫桑比克的莫桑比克的Miombo Woodlands的森林退化率。 他们将研究一个中型但迅速发展的城市Tete的木炭贸易，以分析同时经济和环境变化如何影响人们及其居住的景观的福祉。 他们将整合社会经济分析和生态系统建模，以更好地了解正在迅速融入全球经济的较贫穷地区的森林退化。 社会经济分析的结果将使生态系统模型的改进能够说明木炭生产系统中的消费者和生产者偏好及其对森林降解率的影响。 该模型将用于模拟各种社会，经济和环境场景下的木炭驱动的森林退化，以确定可能损害Miombo Woodlands的可持续使用以及城市和农村居民福祉的模式。 尽管专注于莫桑比克的特定案例研究，但该分析的许多方面对于理解其他国家和生态系统中的自然和人类系统动态具有价值。