Vulnerability of Pastoral Systems to CEG

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Vulnerability of Pastoral Systems to CEG
Kathleen A. Galvin Department of Anthropology and
Natural Resource Ecology Lab Colorado State
University Organizational Meeting for GECAFS
Vulnerability of Food Systems Research
Network Oxford, UK 17-18 May 2006
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• Outline
• Pastoral adaptation and vulnerability
• Integrated modeling, linking PHEWS to Savanna
• Scenario analysis of climate variability
• Implications for the coupled human-environmental
• systems
• New research DRU

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Consequences of Ecosystem Change for Human
Well-being
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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.

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Access to Ecosystem Services An estimated 852
million people were undernourished in 200002, up
37 million from the period 199799 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 12
billion people worldwide
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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

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Ecosystem services and poverty reduction

• 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 worlds renewable
  water supply

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Adaptation

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

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Constraints to Adaptation

• Land tenure and land use changes and other
• forms of fragmentation
• Declining livestock populations
• Human population increases

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Vulnerability

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

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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

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• Integrated Assessment
• A 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

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• 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

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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

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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
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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
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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
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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.

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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

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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

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• Biophysically the
• system does seems to
• be resilient over the
• long run.
• Human food
• security over the short-
• term is terrible.
• To assess vulnerability
• we need to understand
• the complex interactions
• among climate, ecological,
• demographic, political
• and economic systems.

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DRU. Decision-making in Rangeland systems an
integrated Ecosystem-Agent-based Modeling
Approach to Resilience and change (DREAMAR)
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T1 Household goals, Initial conditions
Political Economy, Institutions
Resilience / Vulnerability
Household Decision-making
Mitigation
Infrastructure
Economy
Adaptation Strategies (long-term)
Change Scenarios
Land Use
Land Tenure
Ecosystem services
Coping Tactics (short-term)
Cooperation/Enabling Mechanisms
Demography
Climate and other Environmental Influences
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1land tenure 2infrastructure 3cooperation/
enabling mechanisms 4demography 5economy 6ecolo
gy
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1land tenure 2infrastructure 3cooperation/
enabling mechanisms 4demography 5economy 6ecolo
gy
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Other agents
Interactions
Direct conflicts, trade, gifts, information,
... Indirect markets, externalities, ...
Model of itself attributes, decisions,
... Model of world natural world, other agents,
livestock, ...
Agent
Information
Actions

• Cell attributes
• plant mass
• nutrients
• livestock
• crops

Update attributes
SAVANNA
DAYCENT
www.nrel.colostate.edu/projects/dru
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DECUMA Agent-Based Household Model
Distributions of livestock by species considering
forage quality, quantity, distance to water,
etc., plus restrictions on use due to land
tenure and status Distribution of crops
Household m
Quality of grazing Location Relative
success Conflicts Social status Relatedness Gifts
made Relative wealth Livestock Money
SAVANNA / DAYCENT Ecosystem Models
Habitat suitability for livestock, by species
Suitability of lands for cultivation Suitability
for other types of diversification Other
attributes reflecting ecosystem services (water
quantity, quality for cultivation, soil quality)
Household n
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Thank you
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The basic dietary energy flow in PHEWS

If household energy needs are met, stop If
not, can the household purchase the 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
Milk energy Own maize available Dead, edible
animals Probabilistic slaughter Sugar and tea
energy
Household herds
Household cash box

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Shepard (Agent) Parent Alive Children Tribe Rank C
omType (Communication) Resources Crit (Critical
Thinking)
Rancher (Model) Sim Shepards (How Many) Ecology
Stats
Stats (Object) Statistics Shepards Alive Cattle
pre-Shepard Histogram
Ecology (Object) Climate Resource Production
Sim (Object) Map Size Boundaries Resources
Usage Shepard location Cycles
Create Map
Create Ecology
Create Shepard
Get Shepard
Repeat For Each Cycle
Process Turn
Update Shepard
Update Ecology
Create Stats
Get Shepard
Process Stats
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Shepard (Agent) Parent Alive Children Tribe Rank C
omType (Communication) Resources Crit (Critical
Thinking)
Resources (Object) Livestock Cash
Livestock (Object) Species Population Location
Species (Object) Type Intake Birthing
Population (Object) Number Male Female Age
Create Resources
Create Livestock
Create Livestock
Create Population
Get Resources
Get Livestock
Get Species
Get Population
Return Population
Return Species
Return Livestock
Return Resources
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