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

这项研究提出了一个重大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，可以在小规模和可管理的研究范围内对其进行调查。在过去的两年里，数以千计的牧民逃离了尼日利亚博科圣地造成的不安全局势，带着他们的牲畜搬到了喀麦隆遥远北部地区的洛贡洪水平原。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，已经在使用洛根地区的流动牧民正在可持续地管理这些放牧资源，而不会发生冲突。他们制定了一种分散和灵活的制度，向所有人开放，不分族裔、国籍、资历或社会经济地位。这项基线研究加上难民新来者提供的干扰给研究人员提供了一个难得的机会，让他们看到一个以前记录在案的系统对极端扰动的弹性有多大。当新来者的涌入使系统必须支持的人口翻一番时，开放获取的精神还会继续存在吗？总体而言，洛根平原的人类、动物和自然要素构成了一个复杂的适应系统，在这个系统中，即使没有中央权力机构，个人的决策也会导致放牧压力在可用放牧资源上的理想自由分配。现在，研究人员将观察是否仍然存在理想的牧民自由分布；难民牧民的涌入是否影响了开放获取的风气和做法；以及涌入带来了哪些其他变化。他们将利用全球定位系统/地理信息系统技术绘制牧民营地位置图；利用归一化差异植被指数记录目前植被资源的分布情况，这是一种经常更新的遥感植被指数；记录过境轨道以寻找变化；就其战略与尼日利亚和喀麦隆牧民进行访谈。这个项目的紧迫性，因此需要一个快速奖励，是因为在这个特殊的时刻，牧区系统承受着最大的压力，这使得研究人员能够在社会生态系统适应或崩溃时对其进行实时研究。

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.