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跨喜马拉雅国家的40多亿人依靠亚洲夏季季风维持生计。季风降雨的时间、数量和地点的中断可能严重影响这些人的生计，并造成广泛的经济、社会和健康相关问题。不幸的是，对季风变异性与人类制度反应之间联系的基本理解并不全面，这主要是因为缺乏季风变异性的长期仪器记录和描述该地区人民如何应对这种变异性的历史文献。历史生态学是一种有可能对这个问题产生重大见解的方法，它是一种研究方向，旨在同时获得长期框架内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，一个由来自古环境科学、地貌学、考古学和档案研究的多学科研究人员组成的团队将研究公元1300年左右亚洲季风强度突变的原因和后果。该项目将重点关注西藏西部地区，据信，这一转变导致了该地区人民自给经济的重大变化，包括饥荒、移民和政治经济的重大变化。该项目将对季风变异性背后的因果力量进行彻底检查，并全面记录人类机构（从家庭到区域政体的规模）对不同时间尺度上季风强度和特征变化的各种反应。该项目将加强对自然气候变率以及这种变率对人类制度的影响的基本认识。虽然重点是西藏，但该项目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将研究和教育结合起来。每个项目团队的领导都会鼓励参与的学生直接参与项目的各个方面，包括实地研究，从而使他们获得比只在单一学科中工作更丰富的经验。2005财年美国国家科学基金会人类与社会动力学（HSD）竞赛的一个奖项支持了这个项目。所有NSF理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than is desirable primarily because of a paucity of long-term instrumental records of monsoon variability and historical documents that describe how the peoples of the region have coped with this variability.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.