Pastoralism in Transition: Linking Localized Interactions and System Behaviors to Evaluate Social-Ecological Vulnerability

Drylands cover 40% of the continent of Africa, and are the basis for traditional pastoralist social ecological systems, in which societies have adapted to rely heavily or entirely on livestock production for their livelihoods in harsh and variable environments. Modernity has brought drastic political, social and land use changes, as well as unprecedented population growth, land degradation and more frequent droughts that decimate herds. Here the project team will employ complex adaptive system approaches to evaluate emerging patterns of vulnerability in two pastoralist communities in Kenya which have begun to diversify into maize agriculture alongside their struggling livestock-based livelihood system. We will adopt approaches to investigate how mixed land use affects the sensitivity of range productivity to drought and shifting grazing pressures; how composition and inequities in household livestock assets create differential patterns of risk exposure associated with entry into agriculture; and how evolving land use institutions affect the coping capacity and resilience at individual and collective scales.

Investigators: Elizabeth King (UGA) and Laura German (UGA) (Franz consultant from University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

Funding: NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems ($249,000, 2013-2015)

Transcending heterogeneity: towards improved soil moisture scaling laws