US-Tanzania Planning Visit: Local Knowledge and Coping Capacity: Toward an Understanding of Resilience of Rural Livelihoods to Climate Change

在非洲、亚洲和拉丁美洲，研究人员已经根据当地知识确定了数百种环境、农艺学、社会和经济战略，使农村人民能够实践自己的生计，最重要的是，使人们免受干旱和洪水等极端事件的影响。在气候变化适应研究中，许多研究都集中在区域和国家层面的适应战略上，而微观尺度的适应及其所基于的地方知识是气候变化适应的一个未被充分研究的维度。研究提供的证据表明，当地知识是社区应对干旱能力和抗旱能力的关键组成部分，可能是未来适应气候变化的重要组成部分。由于许多发展中国家采用了分散资源管理的方案，发展中国家的民间社会组织网络和地方政府机构在促进或改变当地应对干旱和其他冲击事件的知识方面发挥了更大的作用。然而，人们对地方知识在家庭和社区应对气候变化能力中的作用仍然知之甚少。有人建议，将有关家庭和社区应对战略的框架与那些评估农村生计系统内当地知识活力的框架结合起来，对于更全面地了解对未来气候变化的复原力和脆弱性的模式至关重要。参与式方法的发展取得进展，为与民间社会组织开展合作研究提供了机会，从而更深入地了解地方知识和机构在适应气候变化方面的作用。研究小组设想的活动将利用一系列参与性方法，包括现有的参与性脆弱性评估初步模型和参与性地理信息系统。这项规划拨款将允许一个由美国和坦桑尼亚科学家组成的小组开会，整理现有的关于气候变化和气候变化的适应性和脆弱性的研究，发展他们的研究假设和方法，并确定研究地点。

Across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, researchers have identified hundreds of environmental, agronomic, social, and economic strategies based on local knowledge that enable rural people to practice their livelihoods and, above all, buffer people from extreme events such as droughts and floods. In the study of climate change adaptation, much research has focused on regional and national level adaptation strategies, while micro-scale adaptation, and the local knowledge on which it is based, represent an understudied dimension of climate change adaptation. Research provides evidence that local knowledge is a critical component of communities' coping capacity and resilience to drought and may be an essential component of future climate change adaptation. As many developing countries have adopted programs of decentralized resource management, networks of civil society organizations (CSOs) and institutions of local government throughout the developing world have a greater role in facilitating or altering local knowledge for coping with drought and other shock events. However, the role of local knowledge in household and community capacity to cope with climate changes remains poorly understood. It is proposed that the merging of frameworks concerned with household and community coping strategies with those that have assessed the dynamism of local knowledge within rural livelihood systems will be critical to developing a more comprehensive understanding of patterns of resilience and vulnerability to future climate change. Progress in the development of participatory methodologies offers the opportunity to engage in collaborative research with civil society organizations to develop more robust understanding of the role of local knowledge and institutions in climate change adaptation. The activities envisaged by the research team will draw on a range of participatory methodologies, including an existing preliminary model for for participatory vulnerability assessment and participatory geographic information systems (PGIS). This planning grant will permit a team of U.S. and Tanzanian scientists to meet to collate existing research on adaptation and vulnerability to climate variability and climate change, to develop their research hypotheses and methodology, and to identify research sites.