Demography and Environment in Grassland Settlement

项目描述（申请人提供）：本项目将研究草原地区在其定居和从原生草向主食作物种植和牧场转化过程中人口与环境之间的关系。 这项研究的目的是了解人口和环境的后果是什么是一个几何均匀和快速转变的土地利用。这一主题仍然是一个至关重要的问题，但由于其对草原环境长期恢复力的重要性，人们对此知之甚少。在整个堪萨斯州的25个乡镇的农场和家庭的样本包括平原生态的关键变化，并允许从1865年到1940年的75年期间的景观变化的研究。堪萨斯有丰富的农业土地使用实践和人口的文件，以调查这种转变。这项研究将展示人口塑造景观的方式，以及环境塑造人的方式，在个人农场和家庭的层面上。它测试了一个假设，该假设声称家庭层面过程对景观层面动态的累积影响是迭代的，并且可能是递归的：人类及其人口优先事项改变了景观;土地利用选择根据生态过程的监测而改变，而改变的景观会产生进一步的变化周期。四个基本问题激发了分析，其中人口和环境结果都是研究的主题：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）“单一耕作”的空间和时间维度是什么，c）转换为耕地如何改变定居前的草地，环境和人口相互作用的最稳定和持久形式是什么？

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?