Climate change and multiple stressors in high mountain areas. Vulnerability, adaptive capacity and human security in Nager (Karakoram), Pakistan.

南亚和中亚的高山是最容易受到全球变暖影响的地区之一，气候条件的微小变化可能导致当地生活条件的重大变化。然而，除了这些普遍的见解之外，关于气候变化相关风险如何在特定的地方背景下表现出来的研究差距仍然存在。因此，气候变化研究往往依赖于简化的假设，忽视了社会系统的复杂性和动态性，也忽视了在当地情况下可能比气候变化更严重的其他社会、政治和经济压力因素。该研究项目建立在研究气候变化和人类安全关系的社会科学方法的基础上，并把重点放在巴基斯坦的喀喇昆仑山脉上——这个地区在关注气候变化的社会后果时只得到很少的关注。一项详细的实证研究将在纳格尔进行，这是一个高山绿洲，主要的生计战略在脆弱的环境中很大程度上依赖于山地联合农业的做法。该项目旨在更好地理解气候变化相关风险对当地居民生计和人类安全的重要性，将气候变化视为几个同时发生的当地变化过程之一。通过识别和分析复杂的多尺度社会经济、政治历史和气候变化之间的因果关系，以及家庭层面上的实际风险，我们打算从地方和整体的角度确定这些过程的重要性。为此目的，开发了一个模块化和多方法的研究框架，其中包括在Nager的几个村庄进行广泛的实地工作。考虑到缺乏当地气候数据，将通过评估当地感知和分析各种其他代理指标来估计气候变化和相关风险。将通过参与性研究方法、专家访谈和分析二手数据来源，在区域和村庄范围内调查社会、经济和政治进程及其附带的风险。此外，我们在详细的半结构化家庭访谈中评估了当地的风险认知以及个人适应策略和应对气候、社会经济和其他压力源的能力。该研究项目有助于填补区域研究空白，并打算开发和实地测试一个分析工具箱，以实施旨在探索多重不安全背景下气候变化关系的主要理论方法。通过采取以人为本的方法，我们的目标是在以自然科学为主导的关于气候变化对全球南方国家影响的研究领域中促进不断发展的社会科学话语。

The high mountains of South and Central Asia are among the areas most exposed to the effects of global warming, where small changes in climatic conditions can result in significant changes in local living conditions. Yet, beyond these general insights, a research gap remains on how climate change related risks manifest socially in specific local contexts. As a result, climate change research often relies on simplified assumptions, neglecting the complexity and dynamics of social systems and disregarding other social, political and economic stressors that, in local circumstances, might be more severe than climatic changes. The research project builds on social science approaches at the nexus of climate change and human security and focuses on the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan - a region that has received only scant attention when focusing on the social consequences of climate change. A detailed empirical study will be conducted in Nager, a high mountain oasis where predominant livelihood strategies largely rely on practises of combined mountain agriculture in a fragile environment. The project aims to better understand the significance of climate change-related risks for the livelihoods and human security of local populations by considering climate change as only one of several concurring processes of local change. By identifying and analysing the causal relationships between complex and multiscalar socio-economic, political-historical and climatic changes, and actual risks on the household level, we intend to determine the significance of these processes from a local and holistic perspective. For this purpose, a modular and multi-method research framework is developed that involves extensive field work in several villages of Nager. Accounting for the lack of local climate data, changes in climate and related risks will be estimated by assessing local perceptions and analysing various other proxy indicators. Social, economic and political processes and their attendant risks will be investigated on a regional and village scale by conducting participatory research methods, expert interviews and analysing secondary data sources. Furthermore, we assess local risk perceptions as well as individual adaptive strategies and capacities to cope with climatic, socio-economic and other stressors in detailed, semi-structured household interviews. The research project contributes to fill a regional research gap and intends to develop and field-test an analytical toolbox to operationalise the predominantly theoretical approaches aiming to explore the nexus of climate change in the context of multiple insecurities. By taking a people-centred approach, we aim at contributing to an evolving social science discourse in the natural science-dominated research field on the effects of climate change in the Global South.