Dissertation Research: Smallholders' Land-Use Strategies and Land-Cover Change in the Nepal Himalaya

理解人类对陆地表面的改变是全球变化研究中最大的挑战之一。农业土地利用战略涉及社会文化、经济和生态因素，是促进土地覆盖变化的主要因素。为了更好地了解这种土地利用策略如何以及在多大程度上与更广泛的土地覆盖变化相关联，本论文研究将调查尼泊尔Lamjung地区山地小农的土地利用策略，该地区在过去三十年中见证了农业策略的重大转变，森林和牧场资源的减少以及山体滑坡的增加。在参与者观察后，将对60户家庭进行入户调查，然后对主要受访者进行深度访谈并收集培训样本。这项研究将评估关于农业和土地使用战略的文化知识和规则的共享程度，以及这些知识和规则如何影响家庭和社区一级的土地使用决策。本研究还将了解尼泊尔喜马拉雅地区（世界上环境至关重要的地区之一）的重要横截面行为者如何感知、管理和改变土地资源。在这样做的过程中，它将试图填补农业人类学、土地利用和土地覆盖变化研究以及山区资源和环境的民族生态学方面的理论和方法空白。更广泛的影响：几个世纪以来，山地农业和环境对高地和下游数百万农村居民至关重要。这项研究将为现有和未来基于社区的保护和发展项目提供信息，这些项目涉及山区土地利用和土地覆盖变化的历史、社会文化、经济和生态影响，这些地区的农业实践严重依赖森林、其他公共资源、牲畜和文化生态适应。此外，它还促进了对年轻社会科学家的教育。

Understanding human modification of land surface is one of the greatest challenges in global change research. Agricultural land-use strategies involving socio-cultural, economic, and ecological factors are a major factor contributing to changing land-cover. To better understand how and to what degree such land-use strategies are associated with broader land-cover change, this dissertation research will investigate land-use strategies of mountain smallholders in Lamjung district of Nepal, which has witnessed significant shifts in agricultural strategies, declining forest and pasture resources, and increasing landslides in the last thirty years. After participant observations, a household survey of 60 households will be followed by in-depth interviews of key respondents and collection of training samples. This research will assess the extent to which cultural knowledge and rules of agriculture and land-use strategies are shared and how those influence land-use decisions at household and community level. This research will also capture how an important cross-section of actors perceive, manage, and change land resources in the Nepal Himalaya--one of the environmentally critical regions of the world. In doing so, it will attempt to fill theoretical and methodological gaps in agricultural anthropology, land-use and land-cover change research, and ethnoecology of mountain resources and environments.Broader Impacts: Mountain agriculture and environments have been critical for centuries to millions of rural inhabitants both in the uplands and downstream. This research will inform the existing and future community-based conservation and development programs on the historical, socio-cultural, economic, and ecological influences relevant to land-use and land-cover change in the mountain areas, where agriculture practices depend heavily on forests, other common pool resources, livestock, and cultural-ecological adaptation. In addition it furthers the education of a young social scientist.