Soil Degradation, Migration, and International Security

人类以一系列复杂的方式煽动和应对自然环境条件的快速变化。例如，传统上主要从自然和物理角度研究土壤退化过程，重点是土壤物质的流失、肥力下降和植物可持续性的变化。然而，对土壤退化过程的全面了解还涉及对人类活动的研究，因为土壤的大部分损失和退化是人类活动直接造成的。此外，随着土壤退化，农业和其他人类活动也必须改变。这个项目不仅研究了人类、自然和物理系统之间的直接联系；为了确定人类和环境力量是如何相互关联的，它还研究了一步之外的相互作用。该项目将包括对玻利维亚东部三个地区的土壤退化进行比较研究。将利用在样地的直接测量和通过分析航空照片来估计土壤侵蚀。这些照片和实地观测也将用于测量土地利用的变化，这些变化将与土壤数据一起进行分析，以便评价土地利用变化与土壤侵蚀之间的关系。补充分析将综合过去几十年的社会经济数据和从访谈和口述历史中收集的信息，以评估促进土壤退化的做法的社会原因，以及土壤退化在何种程度上已成为玻利维亚境内及其与其他国家打交道的一个重要政治问题。这个项目的结果在许多层面上都是有价值的。在研究区域收集的具体信息将增加对这个政治动荡地区人类与环境相互作用的理解。然而，这项研究所依据的更广泛的概念基础是全球性的，玻利维亚的结论将补充其他地方进行的相关研究的结果，从而增强我们对全球环境变化的人类方面的更广泛的认识。

Humans instigate and respond to rapid changes in natural environmental conditions in a complex set of ways. The process of soil degradation, for example, traditionally has been studied largely in natural and physical terms, with emphasis placed on the loss of soil material, declining fertility, and changing vegetative sustainability. Complete understanding of the process of soil degradation also involves the study of human activity, however, because much of the loss and deterioration of soils results directly from human activity. Furthermore, as soils degrade, agriculture and other human endeavors must change. This project examines not only those direct links among human, natural, and physical systems; it also looks interactions one step removed on order to determine how human and environmental forces relate to each other. The project will consist of a comparative study of soil degradation in three districts of eastern Bolivia. Soil erosion will be estimated using direct measurements in sample plots and through analysis of aerial photographs. These photographs and field observations also will be used to measure changes in land use, which will be analyzed in conjunction with the soils data in order to evaluate associations between land-use change and soil erosion. Complementary analyses will integrate socio-economic data for the last few decades and information gathered from interviews and oral histories to assess social causes of practices that have promoted soil degradation and the degree to which soil degradation has become an important political issue within Bolivia and in terms of its dealings with other nations. The results of this project will be valuable at a number of levels. Specific information gathered in the study area will increase understandings of human-environmental interaction in this politically volatile region. The broader conceptual base within which this study is set is global in nature, however, and the Bolivian conclusions will complement results from related studies conducted elsewhere, thereby enhance our broader knowledge of the human dimensions of global environmental change.