Demography and Environment in Grassland Settlement

草原聚落人口与环境

• 批准号: 6760076
• 负责人: KENNETH M SYLVESTER
• 金额: $ 44.32万
• 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/6760076
• 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（由申请人提供）：该项目将研究草地地区的人口与环境之间的关系，并从本地草到主食谷物种植和牧场。 这项研究的目的是了解什么是人口统计学和环境的后果，即几何统一和迅速转移土地利用的后果。这个主题仍然是一个至关重要的问题，鉴于其对草原环境的长期韧性的重要性，这一问题是很糟糕的。堪萨斯州二十五个乡镇中的农场和家庭样本包含了平原生态学的关键变化，并允许在1865年至1940年的75年期间研究景观的转化。堪萨斯州拥有丰富的文献记录了农业土地利用实践和人口，以研究这种转变。该研究将展示人口塑造景观的方式，以及环境在个别农场和家庭层面塑造人们的方式。它检验了一个假设，该假设断言家庭层面过程对景观水平动态的累积影响是迭代的，甚至可能是递归的：人类及其人口优先级改变了景观；土地利用选择因监测生态过程而发生了变化，并改变了景观，导致了进一步的变化周期。四个基本问题激励分析，其中人口统计学和环境结果是研究的主题：a）人口统计学过程影响土地使用和土地使用会影响家庭组织和人口运动，b）“单一文化”的空间和时间维度是什么，“单一文化”，c）转化为农田的转化为阶级和稳定的环境，以及最稳定的环境，d）是什么？