The Spatial Dynamics of Risk and Vulnerability in a Transitional Pastoral Economy

University Of Colorado At Denver-Downtown Campus, Denver CO

Investigators

Abstract

Successful mitigation of the social and economic consequences of environmental hazard depends on understanding how local communities manage a variety of exogenous risks. This study will examine the social, economic, and spatial dimensions of vulnerability in a Mongolian pastoral population. The natural hazards faced by Mongolian herders include local fluctuations in rainfall, the disastrous combination of summer drought and winter cold and snow, called dzuud, availability and quality of forage, animal diseases, and fire. These natural hazards combine with emerging social and economic stresses, including: conflicts over pasture (especially near market centers, water, and desirable winter pastures), failure of market institutions, animal theft, emerging social inequality among herders which impairs customary patterns of resource management, and shortages of labor created by rural-urban labor migration. This study will identify the main biophysical and social environmental challenges or risks that affect Mongolian herders in this new political economic context, discover the strategies used by communities and households to manage this risk, and determine whether these strategies buffer or mitigate environmental risk sufficiently to maintain household well-being across a population. The study design employs a combination of geographic, economic and anthropological tools, with an emphasis placed on the spatial distribution of local-level risk management strategies and vulnerability to environmental hazard. The main outcome variable, household well being, will be measured multi-dimensionally, and will include food security, nutritional adequacy, maternal and child health status, and self-reported health status. Geographic, social, economic, and meteorological data for all of Mongolia's rural counties will be used to measure county-level vulnerability and the level and severity of climatologic stress (drought and cold). Analysis of these data will be undertaken to identify regions of high and low vulnerability, and high and low hazard risk. From these regions a random sample of 240 households from 12 counties, stratified by vulnerability and hazard risk and distributed across Mongolia's main geographic regions, will be studied. Household-level investigation will focus on microeconomic behavior; adaptive strategies, including, social networks, perceptions of risk, common resource management practices, and inter-household cooperation; and indicators of household well/ill-being, including food security, nutritional status, child growth and development, and self-reported health status. Study findings will add to the social scientific scholarship on the impact of natural hazards on pastoralism as it is practiced in the global economy. In addition, the new knowledge on the interaction of climate stress and vulnerability in producing ill-being is of significant broader interest to service providers, development specialists and climate change researchers. The results of this study will thus contribute to understanding the human dimensions of climate change. This award is co-funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering.