Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Influence of Local Government on Land Cover Change in the Tropical Lowlands of Bolivia

在发展中国家，将政治权力下放给市政府已成为处理与环境退化有关的管理问题的一项非常普遍的政策战略，即使不是主要的政策战略。然而，对权力下放改革的环境影响的科学理解仍然非常有限。本博士论文研究项目调查了在什么条件下可以期望分散的发展中国家的地方政府建立适当的土地利用规划制度。为此目的，该项目对玻利维亚热带低地的市政府在环境部门的表现进行了比较研究。为了评估观察到的生物物理变化模式与市政府政策和做法之间的联系，该项目使用了一系列广泛的互补实地方法。这些措施包括：(1)随机选取35个市政府的调查工具；(2)利用1972年、1986年和1999年的遥感卫星影像，对4个城市的土地利用和土地覆盖变化进行时序分析。在研究项目的最后阶段，将邀请资源使用者团体以及市政和中央政府代表参加一个讲习班，讨论初步调查结果和可行的政策选择。

Decentralization of political authority to municipal governments has become a very common, if not dominating, policy strategy for addressing governance problems associated with environmental degradation in developing countries. Yet, the scientific understanding of the environmental impacts of decentralization reform remains very limited.This Doctoral Dissertation Research project investigates under what conditions one can expect local governments in decentralized developing countries to construct adequate regimes for land use planning. To this end, the project undertakes a comparative study of municipal governments' performance in the environmental sector in the tropical lowlands of Bolivia. To assess the linkages between observed patterns of biophysical change and municipal government policies and practices, the project uses of a wide array of complementary field methods. These include (1) a survey instrument administered to 35 randomly selected municipal governments; (2) qualitative institutional analysis of four selected municipalities, and (3) a time-series analysis of land use and land cover changes -using remotely sensed satellite imagery from 1972, 1986 and 1999. In the final stages of the research project, resource user groups along with municipal and central government representatives are invited to a workshop to discuss preliminary findings and viable policy options.