Soil Degradation, Migration, and International Security

人类以一套复杂的方式煽动和应对自然环境条件的快速变化。例如，传统上主要从自然和物理的角度研究土壤退化的过程，重点放在土壤物质的损失、肥力的下降和植被可持续性的改变上。然而，对土壤退化过程的完整理解也涉及到对人类活动的研究，因为土壤的大部分损失和退化都是由人类活动直接造成的。此外，随着土壤退化，农业和其他人类活动必须改变。这个项目不仅考察了人类、自然和物理系统之间的直接联系，还着眼于相互作用，以确定人类和环境之间的力量如何相互关联。该项目将包括对玻利维亚东部三个地区的土壤退化进行比较研究。将使用样地中的直接测量并通过分析航空照片来估计土壤侵蚀。这些照片和实地观察还将用于衡量土地利用的变化，将结合土壤数据进行分析，以评估土地利用变化与土壤侵蚀之间的联系。补充分析将结合过去几十年的社会经济数据以及从访谈和口述历史中收集的信息，以评估助长土壤退化的做法的社会原因，以及土壤退化在多大程度上已成为玻利维亚国内以及与其他国家打交道时的一个重要政治问题。该项目的成果将在多个层面上具有价值。在研究区收集的具体信息将增加对这一政治动荡地区人与环境相互作用的了解。然而，这项研究的更广泛的概念基础是全球性的，玻利维亚的结论将补充其他地方进行的相关研究的结果，从而加强我们对全球环境变化的人类层面的更广泛的了解。

Humans instigate and respond to rapid changes in natural environmental conditions in a complex set of ways. The process of soil degradation, for example, traditionally has been studied largely in natural and physical terms, with emphasis placed on the loss of soil material, declining fertility, and changing vegetative sustainability. Complete understanding of the process of soil degradation also involves the study of human activity, however, because much of the loss and deterioration of soils results directly from human activity. Furthermore, as soils degrade, agriculture and other human endeavors must change. This project examines not only those direct links among human, natural, and physical systems; it also looks interactions one step removed on order to determine how human and environmental forces relate to each other. The project will consist of a comparative study of soil degradation in three districts of eastern Bolivia. Soil erosion will be estimated using direct measurements in sample plots and through analysis of aerial photographs. These photographs and field observations also will be used to measure changes in land use, which will be analyzed in conjunction with the soils data in order to evaluate associations between land-use change and soil erosion. Complementary analyses will integrate socio-economic data for the last few decades and information gathered from interviews and oral histories to assess social causes of practices that have promoted soil degradation and the degree to which soil degradation has become an important political issue within Bolivia and in terms of its dealings with other nations. The results of this project will be valuable at a number of levels. Specific information gathered in the study area will increase understandings of human-environmental interaction in this politically volatile region. The broader conceptual base within which this study is set is global in nature, however, and the Bolivian conclusions will complement results from related studies conducted elsewhere, thereby enhance our broader knowledge of the human dimensions of global environmental change.