Reciprocal Relations between Population and Environment

这是一项关于尼泊尔喜马拉雅山麓人口过程（婚姻、生育和迁移）与环境（土地利用覆盖、植被丰富度和物种多样性以及自然资源消耗）之间相互关系的独特微观研究的建议。迄今为止，对这些数据的分析揭示了一系列关于人口与环境之间整体互惠关系的重要见解。首先，我们发现环境变化的关键维度确实影响了随后的婚姻、生育和迁移行为，但这些种群参数也影响了土地利用、植被丰度、物种多样性和自然资源消耗的变化和变异。其次，在微观层面上，我们发现当地社区背景决定了人口与环境的关系，一方面对婚姻、生育和移民有很强的影响，另一方面对土地利用、植被和消费行为有很强的影响。第三，我们对与这些关联相关的微观层面过程的调查指出，消费行为的变化和对环境变化的看法是连接人口参数和环境变化的关键机制。虽然这些发现塑造了指导我们研究的理论模型，但现在最新的纵向数据为推进这一领域的研究提供了重要的机会。

This is a proposal to continue a unique micro·level study of the reciprocal relationships between population processes (marriage, fertility, and migration) and the environment (land usefcover, vegetation abundance and species diversity, and consumption of natural resources) in the foothills of the Nepalese Himalayas. To date analyses of these data have revealed a series of crucial insights into the overall reciprocal relationships between population and the environment. First, we find key dimensions of environmental variation do shape subsequent marital, childbearing, and migration behavior, but these population parameters also influence change and variation in land use, vegetation abundance, species diversity, and consumption of natural resources. Second, at the micro· level we find that local community context conditions the population· environment relationship, with strong effects on marriage, childbearing and migration on the one hand and land use, vegetation and consumption behavior on the other hand. Third, our investigation of the micro· level processes linked to these associations points toward variations in consumption behavior and perceptions of environmental change as key mechanisms linking population parameters and environmental change. Although these findings shape the theoretical model guiding our research, updated longitudinal data just available now provides a significant opportunity to advance research in this field.