RAPID: Studying the Effects of Disturbance in a Complex Socioecological System

这项研究提出了一个重要的科学和人道主义问题：当一个平稳运行和可持续的社会生态系统受到来自外部政治危机的难民的干扰时，会发生什么？这个问题既及时又具有重要的科学意义。尼日利亚东北部的危机提供了一个宝贵的机会，可以在一个小而可控的研究规模上进行调查。在过去的两年里，成千上万的牧民逃离了博科圣地在尼日利亚造成的不安全局势，带着他们的牲畜迁移到喀麦隆远北地区的洛贡洪泛平原。在早期的研究中，研究人员，俄亥俄州立大学的马克·莫里茨博士和他的团队发现，已经在使用洛贡地区的流动牧民正在可持续地管理这些放牧资源，没有冲突。他们发展了一个分散和灵活的制度，不分种族、国籍、年资或社会经济地位，所有人都可以进入。这项基线研究加上新难民带来的干扰，给了研究人员一个难得的机会，看看以前记录的系统对极端干扰的恢复能力。当新来者的涌入使系统必须支持的人口翻倍时，开放获取的精神还能继续存在吗？总的来说，罗格内平原的人类、动物和自然因素构成了一个复杂的适应系统，在这个系统中，即使没有中央权威，个体决策也会导致放牧压力在可用放牧资源上的理想自由分布。现在，研究人员将观察是否仍然存在理想的牧民自由分布；如果难民牧民的涌入影响了开放准入的精神和做法；以及移民涌入带来的其他变化。他们将使用GPS/GIS技术绘制牧民营地的位置；利用标准化植被指数（一种频繁更新的遥感植被指数），每隔一段时间记录植被资源的当前分布；记录运输轨道以查找变化；并采访了尼日利亚和喀麦隆的牧民，了解他们的策略。这个项目的紧迫性，因此需要一个RAPID奖，是在这个特殊的时刻，牧区系统处于最大的压力下，这使得研究人员能够实时研究社会生态系统，因为它适应或崩溃。

This research asks a significant scientific and humanitarian question: what happens when a smoothly functioning and sustainable socio-ecological system is disturbed by refugees from an external political crisis? The question is timely as well as scientifically important. A valuable opportunity to investigate it on a small and thus manageable research scale is provided by the crisis in Northeast Nigeria. In the last two years, thousands of pastoralists have fled the insecurity caused by Boko Haram in Nigeria and moved with their livestock to the Logone Floodplain in the Far North Region of Cameroon. In earlier research, the researchers, Dr. Mark Moritz (Ohio State University) and his team, found that the mobile pastoralists who were already using the Logone region were sustainably managing these grazing resources without conflict. They had developed a decentralized and flexible system in which access was open to all, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, seniority, or socioeconomic status. This baseline research plus the disturbance provided by the refugee newcomers gives the researchers a rare opportunity to see how resilient a previously documented system is to an extreme perturbation. Will the ethos of open access survive when the influx of newcomers doubles the population the system must support?Cumulatively, the human, animal, and natural elements of the Logone plain comprise a complex adaptive system in which, even though there is no central authority, individual decision-making results in an ideal free distribution of grazing pressure over the available grazing resources. Now the researchers will look to see if there is still an ideal free distribution of pastoralists; if the influx of refugee pastoralists has affected the ethos and practice of open access; and what other changes the influx has brought about. They will use GPS/GIS technology to map the locations of pastoralist camps; document at intervals the current distribution of vegetative resources by using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, a remotely sensed vegetative index that is refreshed frequently; document transhumance orbits to look for changes; and interview both Nigerian and Cameroonian pastoralists about their strategies. The urgency of this project, and hence the need for a RAPID award, is that at this particular moment the pastoral system is under the greatest stress, which allows the researchers to study in real time a socio-ecological system as it adapts or collapses.