US-Tanzania Planning Visit: Local Knowledge and Coping Capacity: Toward an Understanding of Resilience of Rural Livelihoods to Climate Change

在非洲、亚洲和拉丁美洲，研究人员已经确定了数百种基于当地知识的环境、农艺、社会和经济战略，这些战略使农村人口能够维持生计，最重要的是，使人们免受干旱和洪水等极端事件的影响。在适应气候变化的研究中，许多研究侧重于区域和国家一级的适应战略，而微观适应及其所依据的当地知识是适应气候变化的一个研究不足的方面。研究提供的证据表明，当地知识是社区应对干旱的能力和复原力的一个关键组成部分，可能是未来适应气候变化的一个重要组成部分。随着许多发展中国家采取分散资源管理方案，发展中国家的民间社会组织网络和地方政府机构在促进或改变应对干旱和其他冲击事件的地方知识方面发挥了更大的作用。然而，人们对当地知识在家庭和社区应对气候变化能力方面的作用仍然知之甚少。有人建议，将有关家庭和社区应对战略的框架与评估农村生计系统中当地知识活力的框架合并起来，对于更全面地了解未来气候变化的抗御力和脆弱性模式至关重要。在制定参与性方法方面取得的进展为与民间社会组织开展合作研究提供了机会，以便更深入地了解当地知识和机构在气候变化适应中的作用。研究小组设想的活动将借鉴一系列参与性方法，包括参与性脆弱性评估和参与性地理信息系统（PGIS）的现有初步模型。这项计划拨款将允许美国和坦桑尼亚科学家组成的团队开会，整理现有的关于适应和脆弱性的研究，以适应气候变异性和气候变化，发展他们的研究假设和方法，并确定研究地点。

Across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, researchers have identified hundreds of environmental, agronomic, social, and economic strategies based on local knowledge that enable rural people to practice their livelihoods and, above all, buffer people from extreme events such as droughts and floods. In the study of climate change adaptation, much research has focused on regional and national level adaptation strategies, while micro-scale adaptation, and the local knowledge on which it is based, represent an understudied dimension of climate change adaptation. Research provides evidence that local knowledge is a critical component of communities' coping capacity and resilience to drought and may be an essential component of future climate change adaptation. As many developing countries have adopted programs of decentralized resource management, networks of civil society organizations (CSOs) and institutions of local government throughout the developing world have a greater role in facilitating or altering local knowledge for coping with drought and other shock events. However, the role of local knowledge in household and community capacity to cope with climate changes remains poorly understood. It is proposed that the merging of frameworks concerned with household and community coping strategies with those that have assessed the dynamism of local knowledge within rural livelihood systems will be critical to developing a more comprehensive understanding of patterns of resilience and vulnerability to future climate change. Progress in the development of participatory methodologies offers the opportunity to engage in collaborative research with civil society organizations to develop more robust understanding of the role of local knowledge and institutions in climate change adaptation. The activities envisaged by the research team will draw on a range of participatory methodologies, including an existing preliminary model for for participatory vulnerability assessment and participatory geographic information systems (PGIS). This planning grant will permit a team of U.S. and Tanzanian scientists to meet to collate existing research on adaptation and vulnerability to climate variability and climate change, to develop their research hypotheses and methodology, and to identify research sites.