Vulnerability of Pastoral Systems to CEG

1. 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

2. 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

3. Consequences of Ecosystem Change for Human Well-being

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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 world’s renewable water supply

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

14. Constraints to Adaptation • Land tenure and land use changes and other forms of fragmentation • Declining livestock populations • Human population increases

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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

20. 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

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

24. 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.

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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.

28. DRU. Decision-making in Rangeland systems: an integrated Ecosystem-Agent-based Modeling Approach to Resilience and change (DREAMAR)

29. 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

30. Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania Jinst Sum and Bayan Ovoo Sum, Mongolia Great Plains and Northern Great Plains, USA 1 1 1 6 2 6 Kajiado, Kenya 6 2 2 1 6 3 2 5 3 3 5 5 4 4 4 3 5 NW Province, South Africa (communal) NW Province, South Africa (commercial) 4 1 1 6 6 2 2 3 3 5 5 4 4 1=land tenure 2=infrastructure 3=cooperation/ enabling mechanisms 4=demography 5=economy 6=ecology

31. Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania 1 6 2 3 5 4 1=land tenure 2=infrastructure 3=cooperation/ enabling mechanisms 4=demography 5=economy 6=ecology

32. 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

33. 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

34. Thank you

35. 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 …

38. Ecology (Object) Climate Resource Production Shepard (Agent) Parent Alive Children Tribe Rank ComType (Communication) Resources Crit (Critical Thinking) Rancher (Model) Sim Shepards (How Many) Ecology Stats Sim (Object) Map Size Boundaries Resources Usage Shepard location Cycles Stats (Object) Statistics Shepard’s Alive Cattle pre-Shepard Histogram Create Map Create Ecology Create Shepard Get Shepard Repeat For Each Cycle Process Turn Update Shepard Update Ecology Create Stats Get Shepard Process Stats

39. Livestock (Object) Species Population Location Shepard (Agent) Parent Alive Children Tribe Rank ComType (Communication) Resources Crit (Critical Thinking) Resources (Object) Livestock Cash 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