Doctoral Dissertation Research: Land-Use Change as an Adaptation Strategy to Coupled Climate and Economic Change in Rural Western Kenya: Implications for Vulnerability Reduction

对气候变化对撒哈拉以南非洲农村贫困人口影响的日益关注继续困扰着研究人员和发展专家。然而，现实情况是，气候变化与其他进程同时发生，产生了新的风险，也需要一系列全新的适应战略。经济变革已被确定为对农村生计产生重大影响的进程之一。预计气候和经济变化的双重发生将对这些社区的脆弱性产生重大影响。由于大多数农村社区在很大程度上直接依赖土地作为生计资源，土地利用的变化对于理解更广泛的变化过程非常重要。农村变化研究表明，土地利用与农村社区脆弱性之间存在联系。本研究项目的目的是研究土地利用变化作为适应经济和气候耦合变化的途径，并确定其对地方一级脆弱性的影响。这项研究将在肯尼亚西部农村地区进行，那里的贫困程度很高，与气候有关的压力也在增加。它将审查过去10至15年随着家庭加强农业生产和更多地从事面向市场的生产，土地利用/覆盖变化的性质和程度。还将审查在此期间该地区发生的经济和气候变化及其对土地利用的影响。将采用一种综合空间、定性和定量方法的多方法办法，以全面揭示这些过程之间的相互作用及其对脆弱性的影响。空间和社会数据将在一个地理信息系统中联系起来，以审查土地利用变化与脆弱性之间的关系。这项研究将使人们更深入地了解脆弱性的复杂性，以及在发展中国家的农村环境中，脆弱性如何在地方一级发挥作用。它还将为其他过程如何在地方一级与气候变化相互作用以加剧或减少脆弱性提供新的见解。该研究强调了地方层面研究的重要性，指出了气候变化将如何影响撒哈拉以南非洲农村社区的具体背景动态。这项研究的结果有可能对政府和非政府机构设计和执行针对非洲农村社区的发展项目的方式产生深远影响。在地方一级处理脆弱性问题所采取的方法和政策可能必须从狭隘地关注气候变化转向处理多种变化过程的共同发生。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

Increasing concern over the effects of climate change on the rural poor in Sub-Saharan Africa continues to preoccupy researchers and development experts. The reality, however, is that climate change is occurring simultaneously with other processes, creating new risks and requiring a whole new range of adaptive strategies as well. Economic change has been identified as one of the processes that have a major impact on rural livelihoods. The dual occurrence of climatic and economic change is expected to have significant effects on the vulnerability of these communities. Because most rural communities largely depend directly on land as a livelihood resource, changes in land use are important in understanding the broader change process. Rural change studies indicate a link between land use and the vulnerability of rural communities. The objective of this research project is to examine land use change as a pathway for adaptation to coupled economic and climate change and to identify the implications for vulnerability at the local level. The study will be conducted in rural western Kenya where poverty levels are high and climate related stresses are on the increase. It will examine the nature and extent of land use/cover change in the past ten to fifteen years as households intensify agricultural production and engage more in market oriented production. Economic and climatic changes that have occurred in this area during this period will also be examined as well as their influence on land use. A multi-method approach that incorporates spatial, qualitative and quantitative methods will be adopted to bring out the full range of the interactions between these processes and their effect on vulnerability. Spatial and social data will be linked in a GIS to examine the relationship between land use change and vulnerability.This study will provide a deeper understanding of the complex nature of vulnerability and how this plays out at the local level in rural settings in developing countries. It will also give new insights in the way other processes interact with climate change at the local level to exacerbate or reduce vulnerability. The study underscores the importance of local level research by bringing out the context specific dynamics that define how climate change will affect rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings of this study have the potential of having far-reaching implications on the way development projects targeting rural communities in Africa will be designed and implemented by government and non-governmental agencies. Approaches and policies adopted for addressing vulnerability at the local level may have to shift from the narrow focus on climate change to addressing the co-occurrence of multiple change processes. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.