DISES: Co-producing knowledge to sustain pastoral socio-environmental systems: System feedbacks, future scenarios, and adaptive responses

繁荣的家庭农场对于养活世界至关重要，维持充满活力的文化，保护环境，但它们正受到威胁。在大多数地区，由于经济压力增加、气候变化、新的害虫和杂草挑战以及对什么是可行生计的看法发生变化，儿童选择替代职业，农场被遗弃。迫切需要了解使畜牧系统能够适应不断变化的条件的因素和关系，以及哪些因素使小规模农业能够在某些社会环境背景下保持弹性。该项目研究气候，土地管理，景观和政策之间的复杂联系，以了解我们如何通过政策或其他干预措施最好地支持健康的畜牧系统。该项目整合了社会科学、气候科学、植物和土壤科学，以了解哪些变量最有可能维持小规模畜牧系统。牧地景观是一个复杂的社会环境系统（SES），系统中的自然组成部分既支持人类的生计和文化，又需要人为干预才能继续存在。它们覆盖了全球近60%的陆地面积，可能养活多达5亿人。然而，他们面临着越来越多的挑战，最明显的是气候变化和青年人对农业的兴趣下降。这些挑战突出表明，迫切需要了解支持畜牧系统适应不断变化的条件的能力的因素和关系。这个项目探讨了一个长期的牧区系统，这是一个解决这些知识差距的理想环境。数千年来，放牧牲畜和人类利用火创造了高产的高海拔草地，支持生物多样性和其他生态系统服务，以及人类生计和与畜牧业有关的充满活力的文化习俗。虽然受到其他畜牧业系统面临的许多相同压力的影响，但随着时间的推移，这种SES仍然相对强劲，是欧洲新农民安装率最高的国家之一。该项目的总体目标是：a）了解影响农业传播、畜牧业实践的连续性以及这一景观的复原力及其生态系统功能的因素之间的关系; B）开发一个与牧民共同生产社会环境知识的过程，以提高科学知识并加强地方治理机构。本研究将通过实现两个研究目标来实现这些目标：1）通过测量组成环境和社会成分，确定对系统的历史和当前控制，并建模系统元素之间的关系来表征牧区SES; 2）通过将长期社会环境数据收集与气候和政策预测相结合来分析和建模系统中的未来变化。这项研究建立在，并继续，合作跨学科研究，整合当地居民作为充分的合作伙伴，在共同生产的知识对畜牧系统的可持续性。Pastoralists一直在设计和开发这个拟议的研究自成立以来的全面合作伙伴。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thriving family farms are critical to feeding the world, sustaining vibrant cultures, and protecting the environment, but they are under threat. In most regions, farms are being abandoned as children choose alternate careers due to increasing economic pressures, a changing climate, new pest and weed challenges, and shifting ideas of what constitutes a viable livelihood. There is an urgent need to understand the factors and relationships that allow pastoral systems to adapt to changing conditions and what factors allow small-scale farming to remain resilient in certain socio-environmental contexts. This project examines the complex linkages between climate, land management, landscape, and policy to learn how we can best support healthy pastoral systems through policy or other interventions. This project integrates social science, climate science, and plant and soil sciences to understand what variables are most likely to sustain small-scale pastoral systems. The team includes local farmers as equal partners in the work.Pastoral landscapes are complex socio-environmental systems (SES) in which the natural components of the system both support human livelihoods and culture and require human intervention for their continued existence. They cover almost 60% of the global landmass and may support as many as 500 million people. They are, however, facing increasing challenges, most notably climate change and declining interest in farming among youth. These challenges underscore the urgent need to understand the factors and relationships that support the ability of pastoral systems to adapt to changing conditions. This project explores a longstanding pastoral system that is an ideal setting for addressing these gaps in knowledge. Livestock grazing and human use of fire over thousands of years have created productive high-elevation meadows that support biodiversity and other ecosystem services, as well as human livelihoods and vibrant cultural practices related to pastoralism. Though subject to many of the same pressures confronting other pastoral systems, this SES has remained relatively robust over time, with one of the highest rates of new farmer installations in Europe. The overarching goals of this project are a) to understand the relationship among factors that influence farm transmission, continuity of pastoral practice, and the resilience of this landscape and its ecosystem functions, and b) to develop a process for the co-production of socio-environmental knowledge with pastoralists that improves scientific knowledge and strengthens local governance institutions. This research will address those goals by accomplishing two research objectives: 1) characterize the pastoral SES by measuring constituent environmental and social components, determining the historic and current controls on the system, and modeling relationships between system elements; and 2) analyze and model future changes in the system by integrating long-term socio-environmental data collection with climate and policy forecasts. This research builds on, and continues, collaborative transdisciplinary research that integrates local residents as full partners in the co-production of knowledge on pastoral system sustainability. Pastoralists have been full partners in the design and development of this proposed research since its inception.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.