RUI: Coping with Food and Water Insecurity: Vulnerability and Resilience of Small Farmers to Environmental Hazards

该项目将对小农的粮食和水不安全状况进行综合评估，并分析在多重灾害背景下促进生计恢复力的因素。尽管小农对粮食供应和资源保护作出了重大贡献，但他们占世界粮食不安全人口的很大一部分。本研究以尼加拉瓜北部的咖啡种植区为例，在那里，迅速蔓延的咖啡病原体（咖啡叶锈病）、干旱和几种主要食品价格的急剧上涨威胁着人道主义危机，而该地区仍在从数十年的暴力冲突中缓慢恢复，并为气候变化的影响做好准备。分析将包括从家庭调查和访谈、政府和非政府组织、生物物理测量、地理信息系统（GIS）制图和分析以及气候模型收集的数据，以确定加强小农粮食和水安全的因素。这些发现将为全球将气候适应和减少灾害风险与可持续发展联系起来的努力提供信息，对拉丁美洲的生产者以及美国的咖啡业尤其重要。本研究从生计角度在权利和能力框架内考察粮食和水安全。跨学科研究团队将包括教师、当地居民和代表性不足的本科生参与一个参与性过程，使用焦点小组、访谈和基于社区的水资源监测来开发家庭层面的调查工具，以综合评估食物和水的获取以及对过去和现在危害的反应。采用嵌套尺度方法，纵向调查结果将与有关家庭应对经验、性别反应、地方机构、市场、国际发展援助、咖啡叶锈病爆发程度、降水和水资源可变性以及未来气候预测的缩小模型的定量、定性和地理空间数据相结合。利用这一丰富的数据集，该团队将结合定性结果和回归模型来分析(1)农民粮食不安全和水不安全与脆弱性和生计复原力之间的关系；(2)水文气候变率与咖啡叶锈病暴发和生计脆弱性的关系；(3)家庭脆弱性的决定因素以及更有可能提高小农生计复原力的适应措施、粮食和水系统以及制度。该项目将为综合评估与当地水景、气候条件、生计和制度相关的家庭粮食和水不安全提供新方法，并将为全球变化风险背景下的脆弱性和复原力提供更广泛的理论依据。

This project will develop an integrated assessment of smallholders' food and water insecurity and analyze the factors that contribute to livelihood resilience in the context of multiple hazards. In spite of their significant contributions to food supplies and resource conservation, smallholders constitute a substantial portion of the world's food insecure population. This study focuses on the coffee-growing regions of northern Nicaragua as a case in point, where a rapidly spreading coffee pathogen (coffee leaf rust), drought, and sharp increases in food prices for several staples threaten a humanitarian crisis, while the region continues its slow recovery from decades of violent conflict and prepares for the effects of climate change. The analysis will incorporate data that will be collected from household-level surveys and interviews, governmental and non-governmental organizations, biophysical measurements, GIS (geographic information systems) mapping and analysis, and climate modeling to identify what factors strengthen smallholders' food and water security. The findings will inform global efforts to link climate adaption and disaster risk reduction with sustainable development, and have particular relevance for Latin American producers as well as the coffee industry in the United States.This study uses a livelihoods perspective to examine both food and water security within an entitlement and capabilities framework. The interdisciplinary research team will involve faculty, local residents, and underrepresented undergraduate students in a participatory process that uses focus groups, interviews, and community-based water resource monitoring to develop household-level survey tools for an integrated assessment of food and water access and responses to past and present hazards. Using a nested scales approach, longitudinal survey results will be integrated with quantitative, qualitative, and geospatial data on household coping experiences, gendered responses, local institutions, markets, international development assistance, the extent of the coffee leaf rust outbreak, variability in precipitation and water availability, and downscaled models of future climate projections. Exploiting this rich data set, the team will combine qualitative results and regression models to analyze (1) the relationships linking farmer food insecurity and water insecurity to vulnerability and livelihood resilience; (2) the relationships connecting hydro-climatic variability with the coffee leaf rust outbreak and livelihood vulnerability; and (3) the determinants of household vulnerability as well as the adaptations, food and water systems, and institutions that are more likely to advance smallholder' livelihood resilience. This project will generate new methods for the integrated evaluation of household food and water insecurities that are linked to local waterscapes, climatic conditions, livelihoods, and institutions, and will inform broader theories of vulnerability and resilience in the context of risk from global change.