CNH: Paleoclimate Shocks: Environmental Variability, Human Vulnerability, and Societal Adaptation During the Last Millennium in the Greater Mekong Basin

水是社会赖以生存的基本要素。它的使用、分配和管理是人类社会的主要功能。在短缺或过剩时期，例如由于气候变化，人口可以从各种可能的应对措施和适应策略中进行选择。失败可能导致冲突和社会崩溃。除了了解社会可能试图适应过量或有限供水的方式外，重要的是评估特定的气候、社会、政治和经济条件，在这些条件下选定的战略将会成功或失败。该项目旨在确定全方位的文化反应，包括经济和政治活动、资源管理和工程战略、获取和冲突、人口变化和移民，并确定与采取特定适应性反应的可能性相关的水文气候变化的阈值。项目科学家将开发过去一千年来东南亚大陆和大湄公河流域社会与水文气候变化之间相互作用的定量模型。这一长期重点将通过两个独特的数据来源成为可能：大湄公河流域（GMB）关于干旱和河流流量的长期、年度解决和干旱敏感的古气候信息，以及东南亚城市社会的长期考古和文献记录。将这些代理数据来源汇集在一起，可以确定过去一千年中重要的水文气候和社会政治事件，并将使项目团队能够在人类系统脆弱性、风险和适应建模的理论框架内探索社会对古气候变率和变化的反应。将调查两个相关的问题：-印度支那的干旱事件的类型和规模足以需要受影响的人类社会进行社会调整？-什么因素影响减缓气候变率后果的具体对策或战略的成功？这项研究收集的数据将提供跨越几个世纪的独特记录。通过揭示自然变化的范围及其与气候变化的关系，这有可能极大地改善湄公河流经的六个国家未来水资源管理和分配的决策。最近湄公河流量的重大变化进一步强调了更好地了解其长期历史及其变化背后的过程的必要性。在2008年8月的最近一次洪水中，湄公河的水位超过了历史最高水位。这种极端天气是全球变暖的结果，还是干湿期不可避免的自然波动，这是一个具有公共和科学重要性的问题。该项目直接涉及美国和GMB的本科生、研究生和研究生水平的研究。哥伦比亚大学的学生？在美国的实习项目中，学生将获得在社会科学和物理科学领域应用的国际研究项目的经验。研究生将研究与冲突和水有关的社会科学和政策问题。来自越南和泰国的项目参与者将指导来自大湄公河地区的研究生，根据该地区的各种编年史制定与气候相关的事件时间表，供项目科学家使用。为此，东南亚古环境联盟（SAPEC）成立的目的是为整个大湄公河地区对热带环境和可持续发展的长期前景感兴趣的科学家和学生提供培训和教育机会的框架。能力建设工作也将通过与泰国、越南、老挝和柬埔寨的区域科学伙伴的参与和合作来实现。区域研讨会将包括项目团队、来自该地区的社会和物理科学合作者以及来自东南亚和哥伦比亚大学的学生。这些讲习班将提供一个机会来传播这个项目的成果，并为进一步的能力建设和外联提供一个协调中心。

Water is the essential element upon which societies depend. Its use, distribution and management are major functions of human societies. During times of scarcity or excess, for example as a result of changes in climate, populations can select from a diverse range of possible responses and adaptive strategies. Failure may lead to conflict and societal collapse. In addition to understanding the ways in which societies may try to adapt to excess or limited water supply, it is important to assess the particular climatic, social, political and economic conditions under which a selected strategy will succeed or fail. This project seeks to identify the full range of cultural responses, including economic and political activity, resource management and engineering strategies, acquisition and conflict, demographic shifts and migration, and to identify thresholds of hydroclimatic shifts that are associated with the probability of adopting particular adaptive response.Project scientists will develop quantitative models of the interaction between societies and hydroclimate variability over the last millennium for mainland Southeast Asia and the Greater Mekong Basin. This long-term focus will be made possible by two unique data sources: long, annually resolved and drought-sensitive paleoclimate information on drought and river flow from the Greater Mekong Basin (GMB), and the long archaeological and documentary record from urban societies across Southeast Asia. Bringing together these sources of proxy data enables the identification of significant hydroclimatic and sociopolitical events during the last thousand years and will allow the project team to explore societal response to paleoclimate variability and change within the theoretical framework of modeling vulnerability, risk, and adaption in human systems. Two related questions will be investigated:- What types and scales of drought events in Indochina are of sufficient magnitude to need a social adjustment from the affected human societies? - What factors influence the success of specific responses or strategies to mitigate the consequences of climate variability?The data collected in this study will provide a unique record spanning several centuries. This has the potential to greatly improve decision making about future management and allocation of water resources in the six countries through which the Mekong River flows, by revealing the range of natural variability and how it is associated with climate variability. Recent significant changes in the flow of the Mekong further emphasize the need to better understand its long-term history and the processes underlying its variability. The water level of the Mekong exceeded its highest recorded level during the most recent flooding in August 2008. Whether such extremes are consequences of global warming or the inevitable natural swings of dry-wet periods is a question of both public and scientific importance. This project directly involves undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate level research in the USA, and in the GMB. Students from Columbia University?s internship program will gain experience in an international research initiative with applications in both the social and physical sciences. Graduate students will work on social science and policy problems related to conflict and water. Project participants from Vietnam and Thailand will supervise graduate students from the Greater Mekong region, to develop climate-related events timelines from the various chronicles from the region, for use by project scientists. For this purpose the Southeast Asia Paleo Environments Consortium (SAPEC) was organized in order to provide the framework for training and educational opportunities for scientists and students throughout the Greater Mekong region who have an interest in long-term perspectives on tropical environments and sustainable development. Capacity building efforts will also be achieved through engagement and collaboration with regional scientific partners in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Regional workshops will include the project team, social and physical science collaborators from the region, and students from both Southeast Asia and Columbia University. These workshops will provide an opportunity to disseminate the results of this project, and to provide a focal point for additional capacity building and outreach.