HSD: Extreme Weather Events, State Interventions, and Pastoral Livelihoods: Social and Ecological Impacts of Spring Snowstorms on the Tibetan Plateau

Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Abstract

Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, with the greatest potential effects on subsistence-oriented societies. On the Tibetan Plateau, extreme spring snowstorms are reportedly becoming more frequent and severe. The snowstorms of 1998, in which millions of livestock perished, were particularly devastating. For the first time, the Chinese government called for emergency food relief for the herders, and implemented an immediate livestock restocking effort. The overall goal of this project is to investigate the social and ecological implications of both the snowstorms and the state restocking programs, and more broadly, pastoralists' changing vulnerability to climate change. The interdisciplinary research team will draw on both climate impact analyses and vulnerability assessments to investigate how socio-economic status, ecological range condition, and state restocking programs affect herder well-being and vulnerability to severe spring snowstorms. This will be based on pre-1998 storm, immediate post-1998 storm, and contemporary data. Study methods will include interviews, participant observation, ecological field experiments, remote sensing, and climate analyses. Based on these findings, investigators will parameterize and run a coupled agent-based and ecosystem model to assess herder well-being and vulnerability to extreme storms under a suite of snowstorm frequency/intensities, management styles, and state policies. The researchers hypothesize that socioeconomic differentiation, links to regional markets, and grassland management strategies will be the main factors associated with vulnerability to snowstorms. They further hypothesize that the ecological and socio-economic changes which result from restocking will negatively affect herder well-being in the longer-term; however, herders from wetter versus drier Tibetan grassland regions will experience differing vulnerabilities. Results from this project will elucidate what ecological and socio-political features enhance or reduce vulnerability to extreme weather events under environmental and political change. Research results will also highlight important interactions and feedbacks between the coupled human-environment system under global change. This project involves an international, multi-cultural, multi-lingual team of American, Chinese, and Tibetan assistants, graduate students, and both junior and senior researchers. It brings together experts in the fields of ecology, computer science, animal science, remote sensing, anthropology, geography, and political ecology. By conducting both detailed, ethnographic work and rigorous ecological experiments, at a level of detail not usually found in integrated human-ecological studies, and using both as inputs to integrative modeling, this project employs a comprehensive approach to understanding the dynamics of human and social dynamics under global change. This project provides academic training for U.S., Chinese, and Tibetan students. Based on their experiences conducting this project, the lead researchers will teach a course entitled 'Interdisciplinary Research in the Environmental Sciences' at Colorado State University, to educate and inform students about how to successfully conduct interdisciplinary research. Given the immediate policy relevance of this project, the researchers will communicate project findings to policy makers and development personnel working in China through two project stakeholder workshops. Results from this research will enhance understanding of vulnerability and livelihood of marginalized populations to political-economic and climatic change.