| Human-environment interactions have drawn increasing attention to researchers with different backgrounds and research purposes. Many researchers have pointed out the urgency of interdisciplinary integration due to the multifaceted and cross-scale (both spatial and temporal) nature in this type of studies. This dissertation research is an effort to address human-environment interactions using interdisciplinary data and models.; Using Wolong Nature Reserve (China) for pandas as the study site, the goal is to answer the question of how the household demographic features, human needs, attitudes, and activities, and government policies influence the spatio-temporal pattern of panda habitats. Fuelwood consumption is a major factor affecting panda habitat. Under this goal, I have the following objectives: (1) discern the factors that impact household annual amount of fuelwood consumption, (2) develop a household electricity (an available substitute for fuelwood) demand model, (3) understand how young adults leave parental homes and establish their own households, and (4) build a spatio-temporally explicit model that predicts habitat dynamics given results from objectives 1 through 3.; To address objectives 1 through 3, I interviewed 50 households in 1998, and 220 households in 1999. Through different modeling methods (i.e., STELLA systems modeling for objective 1, logistic regression modeling for objective 2, and structural equation modeling for objective (3), I found that (1) household age structure and cropland area are the most sensitive factors that determine (or impact) household fuelwood demand; (2) electricity price, voltage levels, outage levels are key factors that affect household electricity demand; and (3) parental attitudes/behavior, peer behavior, and perceived availability of material/non-material resources play a critical role in adolescents' home-leaving decisions.; With such data and findings, and additional data (e.g., 2000 population census data, household coordinates data) collected in 2000 and 2001, objective 4 represents an integrative effort that uses agent-based modeling approach, where all the individual persons, households, and land pixels are represented as relatively independent agents (concrete definition template, often observational unit), and their interactions are modeled, tested, and simulated in Java-Swarm platform under Linux 7.3 operating system. The findings suggest that human demographic factors and socioeconomic factors could change panda habitat quantity and spatial arrangements greatly, especially in the long run.; Aside from reinforcing the need to include human demographic and socioeconomic factors in wildlife conservation efforts, this research has established a new interdisciplinary approach that includes as much individual-level information as possible. This methodology may be applicable to other human-environment studies in many other places. |
