The Coupling Between Livelihood Of Farmers And Herders And Land Use

Land Use/Cover Change (LUCC) has been the core domain of global environmental change survey during recent20years. Motivated by IGBP and IHDP, aimed at measuring, simulating and understanding human-environment coupling systems, GLP (Global Land Project) has started and become the directives for action in the field of International Geosciences. To explore human-earth system change, research on the nature-human interfaces is to be emphasized, that is, to discuss some important matters such as how human activities result in the change of natural environment, how this change influence human beings’welfare and how human beings respond to the nature environmental change in this circulating complex system. The goal of GLP is to to measure, model and understand the coupled human-environmental system. Farmland-use change is an important domain of land-use change research and its driving mechanism, eco-environmental effects and interpretation in typical regions have been widely concerned by scholars home and abroad. Therefore, exploring the change of human-environmental system and enhancing the physical-human interaction have become one of the paradigms for land use science. To explore the synthetical approach of land use change, livelihood mode was introduced to integrate man-land system as a new perspective for land use science at micro-scale. There is a great significance in deep analyzing the spatio-temporal changes, driving forces and resource effects of land use change at small scales.The shelter function of Tibetan Plateau has an important effect on the ecological security in China, and is regarded as "inductor" and "sensitive area" under climate change. In recent years, the extreme weather and climate events happened frequently affected by global climate change. The strong warming in winter could slow the fulfillment of chilling requirements, which may delay spring phenology, which may lead to the shortage of forage. Besides, the phenomenon of serious soil erosion and desertification in Tibetan Plateau leads to declining soil fertility and forage quality. The grassland area of high alpine grassland and high alpine meadow decreases significantly and the grassland degrades seriously with large range in spatial pattern and long time. In this paper we focus on the connection between livelihood of farmers and herders and land use in three different agro-ecological areas in Tibetan Plateau systematically based on empirical cases by adopting quantitative methods. The aim of the study is to provide the theoretical basis and guidance to balance the relationship of human-environment system and sustainable development in Tibetan Plateau. The results show that:(1) We analyze differences of cultivated land use intensity based on field surveys of357households in five villages from valley and middle mountain area of Jinchuan County in the upper Dadu river watershed, by adopting the methods of participatory rural appraisal (PRA), and qualitatively and quantitatively analyzes the factors influencing on the differences by Tobit model and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimation method. The results show that:1) there are statistically significant differences in cultivated land use intensity in valley and middle mountain area. Both capital intensity and labor intensity in valley are higher than that in middle mountain area.2) In valley area, originally contracted arable land and income from the secondary and tertiary industries have the negative impact on cultivated land use intensity, while real per capita arable area, the family of fixed assets, the total family labor force, agricultural labor force and the number of year au pair have positive influence. In semi-mountain area, originally contracted arable land and the total family labor force have the positive impact on cultivated land use intensity. However, the family of fixed assets, the distance away from the market and social relations have the negative impact.3) Cultivated land resource endowment and number of agricultural labor force are key factors to cause cultivated land use intensity differences, in addition, the conditions or environment for agricultural production and family income levels also have important impacts on cultivated land use intensity differences. Applying an Ordered outcome model, we also performed a quantitative analysis of impact factors and marginal effects of livelihood assets on livelihood strategies, to provide guidance for local agricultural policy interventions. The results indicate that:(1) there are significant differences in the livelihood assets owned by households with different livelihood strategies.(2) Human assets, natural assets and financial assets are the main influencing factors of livelihood strategies. Household labor capacity, education level, proportion of family members in good health, and cash income per capita have positive impacts on livelihood strategies. Farmland owned per capita, farmland cultivated per capita, total livestock owned, and fixed assets, have negative impacts on livelihood strategies.(3) By analysis of the marginal effects of indicators of livelihood assets, when household labor capacity and cash income per capita grow, the proportion of the pure agricultural households and agriculture-dependent households (ADH) will decrease, while the proportion of the non-farming-dependent households and non-agricultural households (NAH) will increase. With an increase in farmland owned per capita; farmland cultivated per capita; total livestock owned and fixed assets, the opposite is the case. The amount of ADH will drop, while the amount of NAH will rise, as the household average education level and the proportion of family members in good health improve. These findings can contribute to better targeted livelihood-related research and development strategies and policies, not only in Eastern Tibetan Plateau, but in other regions where similar livelihood strategies are pursued.(2) In farming-pastoral region of eastern Tibetan Plateau, we analyze the livelihood risk, local perceptions of risk to livelihood of farmers and herders, and the adaptation strategies they adopt in depth, the livelihood process and livelihood assets based on the Sustainable Livelihoods Analysis Framework (SLAF) through household survey by adopting the participatory rural appraisal (PRA) method. The main livelihood risks of farmers and herders in farming-pastoral region of eastern Tibetan Plateau are grassland degradation, medicinal material degradation, reductions in grain yield, livestock deaths, illness and usury. There is a large difference in adaptation strategies adopted by farmers and herders in farming-pastoral region. The main adaptation strategies can be divided into three parts:self-adaptation strategies, helps from relatives, planned adaptation strategies from the State and the portfolios of multiple adaptation strategies. To understand the risk to livelihood and the adaptation strategies under impacts of risk from livelihood process can help to provide a reference to evaluate the household vulnerability in other ecologically vulnerable areas in China.(3) We analyze the settled herdsmen’s adaptation strategies to pasture degradation, on the basis of field surveys of3townships of Naqu County in the hinterland of the Tibet Plateau, by adopting the methods of participatory rural appraisal (PRA). The results show that pastures there have degraded in varying degrees, and the degradation of summer and autumn pastures is more apparent than that of winter and spring pastures. The most obvious influences of pasture degradation on the herdsmen’s livelihoods are mass mortality of livestock, when they have to depend on pinch and scrape or loans. To adapt pasture degradation, the government adopts Four-Package Projects and disaster relief, mainly intensification strategy. However, the settlement of nomads never changes the vulnerability of animal husbandry of this area. The herdsmen adopt a few strategies, such as intensification, livelihood diversification, mutual aid organizations and animal husbandry cooperatives. The herdsmen’s intensification strategies include fencing-off pastures, artificial pastures, supplementary feed and hay storage. However, the intensification strategies immensely increase the burdens on the herdsmen, and they can not satisfy the forage supplement and cope with the extreme weather disasters. With the growing trend of grassland degradation, the settled herdsmen’s livelihood pressure will be heavy, and the ways to solve the dilemma of livelihood will be unitary. When the herdsmen suffer the disastrous weather or a great loss of livestock, they have no choice but to depend on government relief. The livelihood diversification strategy, mainly Chinese herbs collection, small business and piece work, can relieve livelihood pressure, but income from livelihood diversification is instable. Besides traditional adaptation strategies, the herdsmen also resort to mutual aid organizations and animal husbandry cooperatives. We also analyze the herder families’grazing management behavior using participatory rural appraisal (PRA), quantitative analysis and a Logistic regression model. The results show that the herders have become settled and are no longer nomadic, so the settlement project has basically been completed and the policy of contracting for grazing rights is being gradually implemented in Nagqu County. Since the grazing rights and pastures were under contract, group-based management has been widely accepted in this area, which helps the herders deal with constraints, such as limited pasture area, a small grazing radius, controlled family animal husbandry and an uneven distribution of water. The herders that have more family members available for labor, higher proportion of family members with good health, and higher income from animal husbandry tend to choose household-based management. Herders tend to choose group-based management when higher quality winter pastures are available.