Doctoral Dissertation Research: Out-Migration, Environmental Change, and Rural Livelihoods in the Southern Ecuadorian Andes

在人类-环境文献和保护和发展组织的出版物中，环境通常被称为发展中世界人类移徙的根本原因。尽管这些说法频繁出现，但很少有研究系统地调查了移民与环境的关系，特别是对土壤退化和森林砍伐等广泛形式的渐进环境和景观变化进行了调查。众所周知，这些变化威胁到农村生计的可持续性，包括小农农业和野生产品采集。本博士论文研究项目将采用多方法研究厄瓜多尔安第斯山脉南部一个重要的外迁和环境变化中心的这些关系，并提出核心问题：环境变化、外迁和资源依赖型生计战略之间的联系是什么？这位博士候选人预测，环境变化刺激了人口向外迁移，特别是从农业家庭向农村目的地的迁移，而这是通过降低小农农业的生产率来实现的。数据收集将包括对研究地区的社区和家庭样本进行调查。学生还将使用定性方法和空间分析方法，借鉴人口-环境研究领域的进展。随后的分析将使用多层回归模型来估计家庭和社区尺度上环境变量对(1)个人外迁和(2)家庭参与资源依赖型生计战略的影响，同时控制这些尺度上的其他影响。对这些结果的解释将由定性数据收集提供信息。这种方法将有助于深入了解发展中国家农村景观中人类生计与自然环境之间复杂的相互作用。该项目将解决发展中国家农村转型的两个关键过程：导致许多农村地区人口减少的外迁，以及正在侵蚀当地生物多样性和农村生计可持续性的环境和景观变化。据称，这些过程的相互作用每年使数百万“环境难民”流离失所，但这个问题的真正规模尚不清楚。这些问题是研究地区社区成员直接关注的问题，在这些地区，土壤退化和干旱与向国际、城市和边境目的地的快速外移并行。这个项目将以一种新的、系统的和跨学科的方式解决这些问题，为致力于保护与发展的政府和非政府组织的行动提供信息。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

The environment is commonly invoked as an underlying cause of human migration in the developing world, both in the human-environment literature and in the publications of conservation and development organizations. Despite the frequency of these claims, few studies have systematically investigated migration-environment relationships, particularly for widespread forms of gradual environmental and landscape change like soil degradation and deforestation. These changes are known to threaten the sustainability of rural livelihoods, including smallholder agriculture and wild product collection. This doctoral dissertation research project will apply a multi-method approach to investigate these relationships in an important center of out-migration and environmental change in the southern Ecuadorian Andes, asking the core question: What are the connections between environmental change, out-migration, and resource-dependent livelihood strategies? The doctoral candidate predicts that environmental change stimulates out-migration, particularly from agrarian households and towards rural destinations, and that it does so by reducing the productivity of smallholder agriculture. Data collection will include a survey of a sample of communities and households from the study area. The student also will use qualitative methods and spatial analytic approaches, drawing on advances in the field of population-environment research. The subsequent analysis will use multilevel regression models to estimate the effects of environmental variables at both household and community scales on (1) individual out-migration and (2) household participation in resource-dependent livelihood strategies, while controlling for other effects at these scales. Interpretation of these results will be informed by the qualitative data collection. This approach will provide insight into the complex interactions of human livelihoods and the physical environment in rural landscapes of the developing world.This project will address two key processes of rural transformation in the developing world: out-migration, which is leading to population decline in many rural areas, and environmental and landscape change, which is eroding local biodiversity and the sustainability of rural livelihoods. The interaction of these processes has been claimed to displace millions of "environmental refugees" each year, but the real dimensions of this problem are unknown. These issues are of immediate concern to community members in the study area, where soil degradation and droughts have paralleled rapid out-migration to international, urban, and frontier destinations. This project will address these concerns in a new, systematic, and interdisciplinary way that will inform the actions of governmental and non-governmental organizations working for conservation with development. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.