Vulnerability of Pastoral Systems to CEG Kathleen A. Galvin Department of Anthropology and Natural Resource Ecology Lab Colorado State University Organizational.

Vulnerability of Pastoral Systems to CEG

Kathleen A. GalvinDepartment of Anthropology and Natural Resource Ecology Lab

Colorado State UniversityOrganizational Meeting for GECAFS Vulnerability of Food Systems Research Network

Oxford, UK17-18 May 2006

Outline

Pastoral adaptation and vulnerability

Integrated modeling, linking PHEWS to Savanna

Scenario analysis of climate variability

Implications for the coupled human-environmentalsystems

New research: DRU

Consequences of Ecosystem Change for Human Well-being

Ecosystem Services

• Focus of interest in resource use has switched from energy people get from the environment to the “services” the environment provides to people, including food (energy).

• What roles do ecosystem services have on the provisioning of key economic goods and in the services that sustain, regulate and support life on Earth

• Interest in the state and changes in ecosystem services for humans and the ecosystems.

Access to Ecosystem Services

An estimated 852 million people were undernourished in 2000–02, up 37 million from the period 1997–99

Per capita food production has declined in sub-Saharan Africa

Some 1.1 billion people still lack access to improved water supply, and more than 2.6 billion lack access to improved sanitation

Water scarcity affects roughly 1–2 billion people worldwide

Ecosystem services and poverty reduction

•Pattern of winners and losers has not been taken into account in management decisions

– Many changes in ecosystem management have involved the privatization of what were formerly common pool resources often harming individuals who depended on those resources

– Some of the people affected by changes in ecosystem services are highly vulnerable

– The reliance of the rural poor on ecosystem services is rarely measured and thus typically overlooked in national statistics and poverty assessments

• Critical concern: Dryland systems– Development prospects in dryland regions of developing

countries are particularly closely linked to the condition of ecosystem services

– People living in drylands tend to have the lowest levels of human well-being, including the lowest per capita GDP and the highest infant mortality rates

– Drylands have only 8% of the world’s renewable water supply

Ecosystem services and poverty reduction

Adaptation

• Adjustments in social and economic systems made in response to climate effects– Movement– Species-specific herds– Diversifying economic strategies– Emigration

Constraints to Adaptation

• Land tenure and land use changes and other

forms of fragmentation

• Declining livestock populations

• Human population increases

Vulnerability

• Characteristics of individuals or groups in terms of their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of environmental change

Measures of Vulnerability

• A combination of poverty indicators with a measurement of the diversity of resources

• Sensitivity indicators of socio-economic variability– Food sensitivity– Ecosystems sensitivity– Settlements/infrastructure sensitivity– Human population health sensitivity

Integrated AssessmentA methodology which can be used to understand the interaction and effects of policy, climate, and development on pastoral populations

•Spatial-dynamic computer modeling, geographic information systems, remote sensing, climate forecasts and field studies are used to understand the effects of rainfall on vegetation, cattle and human welfare for pastoralists in Africa

Integrated Assessment

• PHEWS (Pastoral Household and Economic Welfare Simulator): tracks the flow of cash and dietary energy following a simple set of rules.

• Linked to Savanna: objectives are to model landscapes or regions; ecological processes, livestock and wildlife; competition (plants, animals

• Investigate scenarios of changes that may impact pastoralists and their ecosystems

Drought scenarios

• To pick out low rainfall that were possible in NCA– Took rainfall records for 55 sites and sorted in

ascending order and then took the 1st percentile of this distribution.

– This was 250 mm which is mean rainfall minus 2SD

– 1978 was a 1yr drought; 1978-79 was the 2yr drought

Summary output over 15 years for the three household types for the control run and the two drought scenarios

Poor Medium Rich

CONTROL RUN

Total own grain consumed (% in diet)

16.2 12.5 17.1

Total gifts/supplements (% in diet)

13.4 8.4 0.0

Own food available (%) 41.1 44.5 57.6

Average TLUs per Adult Equivalent

1.07 1.65 4.40

Poor Medium Rich

ONE-YEAR DROUGHT

Total own grain consumed (% in diet)

14.7 11.3 15.5

Total gifts/supplements (% in diet)

14.2 9.0 0.0

Own food available (%) 39.5 43.2 56.2

Average TLUs per Adult Equivalent

1.06 1.63 4.36

Poor Medium Rich

TWO-YEAR DROUGHT

Total own grain consumed (% in diet)

13.3 10.3 14.1

Total gifts/supplements (% in diet)

14.9 9.5 0.1

Own food available (%) 37.9 41.8 54.9

Average TLUs per Adult Equivalent

1.05 1.62 4.32

Is the system resilient?

• 2 yrs of drought had a small impact on calories available to the household

• Livestock populations are thought to be under some long-term carrying capacity due to disease

• Resilience may be an effect of Savanna overly simulating regrowth of vegetation.

Resilience and Vulnerability

• NCA system seems to be resilient to drought and it seems that the Maasai are not very vulnerable to climate variability

• First, a perturbation to a system rarely acts alone

• Second, the impact of perturbation is based on initial conditions

Vulnerability

• For the droughts there is no home-grown maize

• % of needed food in some months in poor households goes up to 70-80% of all calories

• The current Maasai economic situation in the NCA is precarious and food insecurity is prevalent even without drought

•Biophysically the system does seems tobe resilient over thelong run.• Human food security over the short-term is terrible.• To assess vulnerabilitywe need to understandthe complex interactionsamong climate, ecological,demographic, political and economic systems.

DRU. Decision-making in Rangeland systems: an integrated Ecosystem-Agent-based

Modeling Approach to Resilience and change (DREAMAR)

Infrastructure

Household Decision-making

Political Economy, Institutions

Change Scenarios

Climate and other Environmental Influences

Land Use

Economy

Land Tenure

Ecosystem services

Cooperation/Enabling Mechanisms

Demography

Mitigation

Adaptation Strategies (long-term)

Coping Tactics (short-term)

T1 Household goals, Initial conditions

Resilience / V

ulnerability

6

5

1

4

2

3

Great Plains and Northern Great Plains, USA 1=land tenure

2=infrastructure

3=cooperation/ enabling mechanisms

4=demography

5=economy

6=ecology

Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania

6

5

1

4

2

3

NW Province, South Africa (communal)

6

5

1

4

2

3

NW Province, South Africa (commercial)

6

5

1

4

2

3

Jinst Sum and Bayan Ovoo Sum, Mongolia

6

5

1

4

2

3

Kajiado, Kenya

6

5

1

4

2

3

Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania

6

5

1

4

2

3

1=land tenure

2=infrastructure

3=cooperation/ enabling mechanisms

4=demography

5=economy

6=ecology

SAVANNA DAYCENT

Cell attributes• plant mass• nutrients• livestock• crops

Agent

Information Actions

Model of itself: attributes, decisions, ...

Model of world: natural world,other agents, livestock, ...

Other agents Interactions

Direct: conflicts, trade, gifts, information, ...

Indirect: markets, externalities, ...

Updateattributes

www.nrel.colostate.edu/projects/dru

Household m

Household n

Quality of grazingLocationRelative success

ConflictsSocial statusRelatednessGifts made

Relative wealthLivestockMoney

SAVANNA / DAYCENTEcosystem Models

Distributions of livestock by speciesconsidering forage quality, quantity, distance to water, etc.,plus restrictions on use due to land tenure and status

Distribution of crops

Habitat suitability for livestock, by species Suitability of lands for cultivationSuitability for other types of diversificationOther attributes reflecting ecosystem services (water quantity,

quality for cultivation, soil quality)

DECUMAAgent-Based

Household Model

Thank you

The basic dietary energy flow in PHEWS

Milk energy

Own maize available

Dead, edible animals

Probabilistic slaughter

Sugar and tea energy

If household energy needs aremet, stop

If not, can the household purchasethe balance and maize?

If yes, purchase the balance and stop

If not, buy what the household can afford

The balance is made up of ‘relief’

Household herds

Household cash box

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F i g u r e 1 . C o n d i t i o n i n d e x f o r c a t t l e , s h e e p a n d g o a t s f o r t h e f i r s t 1 1 y e a r s o ft h e r u n : o n e - y e a r d r o u g h t ( t o p ) , t w o - y e a r d r o u g h t ( b o t t o m )

Figure 2. Average monthly percentage of dietary calories from relief in poorhouseholds over 15 years for three scenarios

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988

Year

Av M

on

thly

% R

eli

ef

in D

iet

Control run

1-year drought

2-year drought

Create Ecology

Shepard (Agent)Parent

Alive

Children

Tribe

Rank

ComType (Communication)

Resources

Crit (Critical Thinking)

Rancher (Model)Sim

Shepards (How Many)

Ecology

Stats

Stats (Object)

StatisticsShepard’s Alive

Cattle pre-Shepard

Histogram

Ecology (Object)Climate

Resource Production

Sim (Object)Map Size

Boundaries

Resources Usage

Shepard location

Cycles

Create Map

Create Shepard

Create Stats

Get Shepard

Update Ecology

Process Turn

Update Shepard

RepeatForEachCycle

Get Shepard

Process Stats

Create Livestock

Shepard (Agent)Parent

Alive

Children

Tribe

Rank

ComType (Communication)

Resources

Crit (Critical Thinking)

Resources (Object)

Livestock

Cash

Livestock (Object)

Species

Population

Location

Create Resources

Species (Object)Type

Intake

Birthing

Population (Object)

Number

Male

Female

Age

Create Livestock

Create Population

Get Resources

Get Livestock

Get Species

Get Population

Return Population

Return Species

Return Livestock

Return Resources