Dissertation Research: Smallholders' Land-Use Strategies and Land-Cover Change in the Nepal Himalaya

University Of Georgia Research Foundation Inc, Athens GA

Investigators

Abstract

Understanding human modification of land surface is one of the greatest challenges in global change research. Agricultural land-use strategies involving socio-cultural, economic, and ecological factors are a major factor contributing to changing land-cover. To better understand how and to what degree such land-use strategies are associated with broader land-cover change, this dissertation research will investigate land-use strategies of mountain smallholders in Lamjung district of Nepal, which has witnessed significant shifts in agricultural strategies, declining forest and pasture resources, and increasing landslides in the last thirty years. After participant observations, a household survey of 60 households will be followed by in-depth interviews of key respondents and collection of training samples. This research will assess the extent to which cultural knowledge and rules of agriculture and land-use strategies are shared and how those influence land-use decisions at household and community level. This research will also capture how an important cross-section of actors perceive, manage, and change land resources in the Nepal Himalaya--one of the environmentally critical regions of the world. In doing so, it will attempt to fill theoretical and methodological gaps in agricultural anthropology, land-use and land-cover change research, and ethnoecology of mountain resources and environments. Broader Impacts: Mountain agriculture and environments have been critical for centuries to millions of rural inhabitants both in the uplands and downstream. This research will inform the existing and future community-based conservation and development programs on the historical, socio-cultural, economic, and ecological influences relevant to land-use and land-cover change in the mountain areas, where agriculture practices depend heavily on forests, other common pool resources, livestock, and cultural-ecological adaptation. In addition it furthers the education of a young social scientist.