Demography and Environment in Grassland Settlement

草原聚落人口与环境

• 批准号: 6676656
• 负责人: KENNETH M SYLVESTER
• 金额: $ 65.7万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-09-01 至 2007-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6676656
• 关键词: agriculture; agriculture worker; behavioral /social science research tag; culture; ecology; ecosystem; environment; family structure /dynamics; geographic site; household; human data; human ecology; human migration; information systems; longitudinal human study; photography; plant ecology; rural area

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project will study the relationship between population and environment in a grassland region during its settlement and conversion from native grasses to staple grain cultivation and rangeland. The goal of this research is to understand the demographic and environmental consequences of what was a geometrically uniform and rapid shift in land use. This subject remains a vital question, one that is poorly understood given its importance for the long-term resilience of grassland environments. A sample of farms and families in twenty-five townships across the state of Kansas embraces key variations in plains ecology, and allows a study of landscape transformations over the 75-year period from 1865 to 1940. Kansas has rich documentation of both agricultural land use practices and population with which to investigate this transformation. The research will show the ways that human population shaped the landscape, and the ways that environment shaped people, at the level of the individual farm and family. It tests a hypothesis that asserts the cumulative impacts of household-level processes on landscape-level dynamics were iterative and possibly recursive: humans and their demographic priorities altered landscapes; land-use choices changed in response to monitoring of ecological processes, and altered landscapes engendered further cycles of change. Four basic questions motivate analysis in which both demographic and environmental outcomes are the subjects of study: a) how did demographic processes affect land use and land use affect household organization and population movement, b) what are the spatial and temporal dimensions of "monoculture," c) how did conversion to cropland alter pre-settlement grasslands, and d) what were the most stable and persistent forms of environmental and demographic interaction?

描述(申请人提供)：这个项目将研究草原地区在定居和从本地牧草向主要粮食种植和牧场转变过程中人口与环境的关系。这项研究的目标是了解土地利用的几何均匀和快速变化对人口和环境的影响。这一主题仍然是一个至关重要的问题，由于它对草原环境的长期复原力的重要性，人们对这个问题知之甚少。堪萨斯州25个乡镇的农场和家庭样本包含了平原生态的关键变化，并允许研究从1865年到1940年的75年期间的景观变化。堪萨斯州有丰富的农业土地利用实践和人口记录，可以用来研究这种转变。这项研究将在单个农场和家庭的层面上展示人类人口塑造景观的方式，以及环境塑造人的方式。它测试了一个假设，即家庭一级的过程对景观一级动态的累积影响是反复的，可能是递归的：人类及其人口优先事项改变了景观；土地使用选择因对生态过程的监测而改变，改变的景观产生了进一步的变化周期。以人口和环境结果为研究对象的四个基本问题促使进行分析：a)人口过程如何影响土地利用，土地利用如何影响家庭组织和人口流动；b)“单一文化”的空间和时间维度是什么；c)转变为农田是如何改变定居前草原的；以及d)环境和人口相互作用最稳定和最持久的形式是什么？