ESE: Collaborative Research: Spatial Resilience of Agriculturalists to Coupled Ecological and Hydrological Variability in Rural Zambia

世界许多地区的农村生计受到气候变化及其对水资源供应和生态系统服务提供的相应影响的巨大影响。这在半干旱的热带地区尤其如此，该地区人口占世界人口的22%，长期贫困和粮食消费不足现象高度集中。区域内小农的脆弱性很大程度上是由地表水文动态驱动的；直接通过降雨变率或间接通过人为或气候引起的额外土地和水退化。当作物产量因降水不足或在某些情况下降水过多而下降时，家庭采取各种应对策略来生存，其中许多策略具有明确的空间维度。印第安纳大学地理系的Tom Evans和普林斯顿大学土木工程系的Kelly Caylor通过研究水资源供应和农业决策的空间模式，研究了赞比亚小农对气候变化的适应能力。该项目特别关注不同地区小农在作物歉收时期采取的应对策略的多样性，如不吃饭、寻求非农工作机会或依赖粮食援助。选择不同应对机制的决定和选择取决于一系列复杂的社会和生态条件，如降水模式、地表地形、土地持有的空间分布、社区内的社会规范和区域粮食援助的可得性。该项目将审查赞比亚两个地区的这些复杂动态，这些地区呈现出一系列水文/气候制度和社会经济条件。具体来说，我们将重点关注一个年降水量少、干旱期相对频繁的省份，以及一个年降雨量适中、季节性干旱不太严重的省份。这项研究将使人们对半干旱热带地区水文动态与小农应对气候变化能力之间的关系有新的认识。虽然大量的研究已经解决了系统的弹性，以了解社会如何应对社会或生态干扰，但弹性的空间维度尚未得到充分探索。本研究的结果将确定小农在不同土地利用和水文背景下使用的应对策略，并阐明这些应对策略的空间维度。该项目还将开发新的方法，根据对发展倡议和粮食援助分配活动有影响的未来气候变化的具体情况，确定脆弱性的“热点”。

Rural livelihoods in many parts of the world are dramatically affected by climate variability and its corresponding impact on water availability and provision of ecosystem services. This is particularly the case in the semi-arid tropics (SAT), which contain 22% of the world's population and high concentrations of chronic poverty and inadequate food consumption. Much of the vulnerability of smallholders within the SAT is driven by surface hydrological dynamics; both directly through rainfall variability and indirectly through additional human- or climate-induced land and water degradation. When crop yields decline due to insufficient or in some cases excessive precipitation, households adopt various coping strategies to survive, many of which have an explicitly spatial dimension. Tom Evans from the Department of Geography at Indiana University and Kelly Caylor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Princeton University examine the resilience of smallholders in Zambia to climate variability by examining the spatial patterns of water availability and agricultural decision-making. The project particularly focuses on the diversity of coping strategies that smallholders in different locations employ to survive periods of crop failure such as skipping meals, seeking off-farm work opportunities or relying on food aid. The decision and option to choose different coping mechanisms depends on a complex set of social and ecological conditions such as precipitation patterns, surface topography, the spatial distribution of land holdings, social norms within a community and the regional availability of food aid. This project will examine these complex dynamics in two regions of Zambia that present a range of hydrological/climate regimes and socio-economic conditions. Specifically, we will focus on one province with low annual precipitation and relatively frequent periods of drought, and a second province with moderate annual rainfall and less severe seasonal drought.This research will lead to new understanding of the relationship between hydrological dynamics and the ability of smallholders to respond to climate variability in the semi-arid tropics. While a substantial amount of research has addressed the resilience of systems to understand how societies cope with social or ecological disturbances, the spatial dimensions of resilience have not been fully explored. The results from this research will identify what coping strategies smallholders use in different land use and hydrological contexts and articulate the spatial dimensions of those coping strategies. This project will also develop new methods to identify 'hotspots' of vulnerability given specific scenarios for future climate variability that has implications for development initiatives and food aid distribution activities.