Dissertation Research: Understanding Pastoral Land Use in East Africa - An Interdisciplinary Approach

本论文的研究项目是由加州大学戴维斯分校的一名文化人类学学生完成的，研究坦桑尼亚牧民家庭的土地使用情况。 学生将结合联合收割机的观点，从个人决策和文化生态学的研究，量化不同的限制对牧民家庭内的土地使用的影响。 将构建基于个体的放牧强度空间模型。 以个人为基础的模型的优点是，它捕捉到在家庭一级确定的可变性，并将这一信息纳入土地使用的景观尺度格局的特点。 将对放牧强度梯度的木本和草本植被进行取样，并将监测放牧强度不同地区的畜群生产力。 植被数据将显示资源的可用性，生产力的措施将解决密度依赖反馈是否影响畜牧生产。 本研究将有助于对牧区土地利用实践中个体变异性的相对罕见的分析，并将推进对牧区土地利用限制因素的定量研究。 通过整合家庭决策，土地利用的总模式和生态结果，拟议的研究将提供一个更完整的动态牧区土地利用系统的图片。 这项研究还有利于培养一名年轻的社会科学家，并增进我们对世界这一重要地区的了解。

This dissertation research project by a cultural anthropology student at the University of California-Davis studies land use of pastoral households in Tanzania. The student will combine perspectives from studies of individual decision making and cultural ecology to quantify the effects of different constraints on land use within pastoral households. An individual-based spatial model of grazing intensity will be constructed. The advantage of an individual-based model is that it captures the variability identified at the household level and incorporates this information in characterizing landscape scale patterns of land use. Woody and herbaceous vegetation will be sampled across a gradient of grazing intensity, and the productivity of herds using areas with different grazing intensities will be monitored. Vegetation data will show resource availability and measures of productivity will address whether density dependent feedback affect pastoral production. This research will contribute a relatively rare analysis of individual variability in pastoral land use practices, and will advance the quantitative study of constraints on pastoral land use. By integrating household decisions, aggregated patterns of land use, and ecological outcomes, the proposed research will provide a more complete picture of the dynamics pastoral land use systems. The research also benefits the training of a young social scientist and advances our knowledge of this important region of the world.