HSD: Paleoclimatic Change, Landscape Evolution, and Cultural Transformations in Far Western Tibet from 2,500 Years Before the Present to the Present

今天生活在喜马拉雅和喜马拉雅山脉以外国家的40多亿人依靠亚洲夏季季风为生。 季风降雨的时间、数量和地点的中断会严重影响这些人的生计，并造成广泛的经济、社会和健康问题。 不幸的是，对季风变化和人类机构反应之间联系的基本了解不如理想的那样全面，主要是因为缺乏关于季风变化的长期仪器记录和描述该区域人民如何应对这种变化的历史文献。 历史生态学是一种有可能对这一问题产生重要见解的方法，这种研究方向旨在同时获得长期气候变化和人类对气候变化的反应的数据。 在这个研究项目中，来自古环境科学，地貌学，考古学和档案研究的多学科研究人员团队将研究公元1300年左右亚洲季风强度突变的原因和后果。 该项目将重点关注遥远的西藏西部地区，据信这一转变导致该地区人民的生计经济发生了重大变化，包括饥荒，移民和政治经济的重大变化。 该项目将对季风变化背后的因果力量进行彻底的研究，并全面记录人类机构（从家庭到区域政体）对不同时间尺度上季风强度和特征变化所作的各种反应。 该项目将加强对自然气候变异性和这种变异性对人类机构的影响的基本了解。 虽然该项目的重点是西藏，但它将为整个喜马拉雅地区的气候系统和人类之间的长期相互作用提供新的见解。 该项目将通过在美国、中国和西藏的大学、学科和研究人员之间建立新的伙伴关系，促进教学、培训和学习。 它将通过本科生和研究生的参与整合研究和教育。 每个项目团队负责人将鼓励参与的学生直接与项目的各个方面，包括实地研究，从而使他们能够获得比只在单一学科工作更丰富的经验。 2005财政年度全国科学基金会人类和社会动态（HSD）竞赛的一个奖项支持了这个项目。 NSF的所有董事会和办公室都参与了HSD竞赛和HSD奖项组合的协调管理。

The more than four billion people who live today in the Himalayan and trans-Himalayan nations depend upon the Asian summer monsoon for their livelihood. Disruptions in the timing, amount, and location of monsoon rainfall can seriously affect the livelihood of these people and create widespread economic, social, and health-related problems. Unfortunately, basic understanding of the linkages between monsoon variability and human institutional response is less comprehensive than is desirable primarily because of a paucity of long-term instrumental records of monsoon variability and historical documents that describe how the peoples of the region have coped with this variability. One approach that offers the potential to develop significant insights into this problem is historical ecology, a research orientation that seeks to obtain simultaneously data on climate change and human response to it over long time frames. In this research project, a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the paleoenvironmental science, geomorphology, archaeology, and archival studies will the study the causes and consequences of a hypothesized abrupt shift in the intensity of the Asian monsoon around AD 1300. This project will focus on far western Tibet, a region where this shift is believed to have led to significant changes in the subsistence economies of the peoples of the region, including famine, migrations, and major changes in political economy. This project will undertake a thorough examination of the causal forces behind monsoon variability as well as a comprehensive documentation of the variety of responses made by human institutions (ranging in scale from the household to the regional polity) to variation in monsoon intensity and character at different temporal scales. The project will enhance basic understanding of both natural climate variability and the impact of this variability on human institutions. Although focusing on Tibet, this project will provide new insights into long-term interaction between climate systems and people throughout the Himalayan region. The project will promote teaching, training and learning by building new partnerships among universities, disciplines, and researchers in the United States, China and Tibet. It will integrate both research and education through the involvement of undergraduate and graduate students. Each project team leader will encourage participating students to work directly with every aspect of the project, including field research, thus enabling them to obtain a richer experience than would be possible by working only within a single discipline. An award resulting from the FY 2005 NSF-wide competition on Human and Social Dynamics (HSD) supports this project. All NSF directorates and offices are involved in the coordinated management of the HSD competition and the portfolio of HSD awards.