CNH: Dynamic Interactions Among People, Livestock, and Savanna Ecosystems Under Climate Change

气候变化是影响自然和人类系统的一个关键因素，这些系统已经在不断变化。当气候变化和人类对生态系统的影响相互作用时，是否有可能将它们分开？东非大草原正在研究这一问题，那里的植被和社会预计将特别受到气候变化的影响。这些地区以畜牧业为主，在某些地区还以野生动物为主。他们处于种植农业不断扩大的边缘。气候变化正在导致气温变暖，改变降水模式，并在一些地方造成严重的生产力损失。这些变化和更频繁的极端降雨事件将深刻影响依赖牲畜和自然资源的生态系统和生计系统。人类的应对措施包括改变牲畜和种植土地使用制度，但在某些时候，以自然资源为基础的生计可能根本不能满足家庭的需求，从而导致变革的临界点。这一跨学科研究项目将通过对东非国家肯尼亚、坦桑尼亚和埃塞俄比亚三个不同大草原地区变化的案例研究，分析气候、人类活动和土地利用之间的相互作用。研究人员将从多个角度探讨这些关系，包括政治生态学、景观生态学和复原力理论。将使用多种方法和信息来源来确定进程及其对综合系统的影响。在区域一级，调查人员将把气候和植被模拟以及卫星图像分析纳入他们的工作，而在案例研究一级，他们将包括调查、家庭决策模拟、植物物种计数和饲料分析。该项目将提供有关气候变化对稀树草原生态系统影响的新信息，并将有助于回答有关土地利用对气候影响的相对重要性的问题。它将开发和测试一种综合的方法，将自然、社会和统计科学中的最先进方法结合在一起。这种方法和分析将为全球类似生态系统的研究提供信息。它们将增加关于气候、土地和社会之间的相互作用和反馈以及复杂系统建模的科学知识。结果将有助于提高社会对气候变化影响的认识，并将为适应和缓解提供选择。这项研究还将为农业研究和政策以及在保护和经济规划方面的研究和实践提供关键信息。该项目由自然与人类系统相互作用的国家自然科学基金会竞赛所颁发的奖项支持。美国国家科学基金会的国际科学与工程办公室也为该项目提供支持。

Climate change is a critical factor affecting natural and human systems that are already in constant flux. Is it possible to separate out the impact of climate change from human impacts on the ecological system when they are interacting with each other? This question is being examined in the savannas of East Africa, where vegetation and society are expected to be particularly impacted by climate change. These areas are dominated by pastoralism and, in some areas, by wildlife. They are at the expanding edge of cropped agriculture. Climate change is leading to warmer temperatures, to altered precipitation patterns, and to significant losses of productivity in some places. These shifts and more frequent extreme rainfall events will profoundly affect the ecosystem and the livelihood systems dependent on livestock and natural resources. Human responses include altered livestock and cropping land-use systems, but at some point, natural resource-based livelihoods may simply not able to satisfy the needs of households, thereby leading to a tipping point of change. This interdisciplinary research project will conduct an analysis of the interactions among climate, human activity and land use through a case study of change in three different savannah-based regions in the east African nations of Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. The investigators will explore these relationships from a number of perspectives, including political ecology, landscape ecology, and resilience theory. Multiple methods and information sources will be used to identify processes and their impacts on the integrated system. At the regional level, the investigators will incorporate climate and vegetation modeling and analyses of satellite imagery in their work, while at the case-study level, they will include surveys, household decision modeling, plant species counts, and forage analysis.This project will provide new information about the impact of climate change on savanna ecosystems and will contribute to answering questions on the relative importance of land use affecting climate. It will develop and test a comprehensive methodology that integrates state-of-the-art methods in the natural, social and statistical sciences. The approach and analyses will inform research in similar ecosystems around the globe. They will add to scientific knowledge on interactions and feedbacks among climate, land, and society and on complex system modeling. The results will contribute to society's awareness of the impact of climate change and will inform options for adaptation and mitigation. The research also will provide critical information for agricultural research and policy as well as both research and practice in conservation and economic planning. This project is supported by an award resulting from the NSF competition focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems. NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering also is providing support for this project.