Research On The Livelihood Transformation Of Hydropower Immigrant Farmers In Minority Areas Of Western Sichuan

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China,the Dadu River Basin in the western Sichuan ethnic minority area,with abundant hydropower resources,has always been an important base for the transmission of electricity from the west to the east in China.As China further develops and utilizes hydropower resources in western Sichuan,the construction of water conservancy and hydropower projects will inevitably lead to the issue of migration,and the issue of hydropower migration has become one of the unabated topics in the field of economic and social research in China.Up to now,there are still millions of hydropower migrants in China facing such prominent problems as low income and poor living conditions.This is because after migration,for most of the hydropower migrant farmers,the resources they used to make a living will dramatically change,causing much more requirement on the transformation and adjustment of immigrant livelihood model after migration,the resulting change in employment,education,social interaction,cultural practices,and many other aspects of change,further restricted the sustainability of hydropower immigration farmers’ livelihood.Based on this,this thesis focuses on hydropower migrant farmers livelihood transformation and the influence factors of different types of transformation of livelihood mode,and through field investigations on three hydropower immigrant resettlement sites in Pengba Town,Luding County,Sichuan Province.After obtaining the relevant data of the hydropower migrant farmers livelihood capital changes,on the basis of analyzing the change of the migrant farmers livelihood model before and after the immigration,applying binomial Logistic model to analyze the influencing factors of migrant farmers livelihood model transformation,this thesis aims to put forward the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions,in order to seek to promote the effective path of sustainable development of hydropower immigrant farmers livelihoods.It provides a reference for decision-making on the effective connection of rural revitalization work after China completes the goal of comprehensive poverty alleviation in 2020.The research content of this thesis is divided into six parts: The first chapter is the introduction,which mainly introduces the research background,research purpose and significance,research ideas and methods,research content and possible innovations.The second chapter is the concept definition and theoretical basis,mainly combining the existing literature and the actual situation of the surveyed area to define the hydropower migration and livelihood transformation.At the same time,domestic and foreign literatures are reviewed from the perspectives of hydropower migration research and livelihood capital and livelihood transformation research.Finally,the theoretical basis of this study,namely sustainable livelihood theory and peasant household behavior theory,is expounded.In the third chapter,the migration resettlement sites of Pengba Town in Luding County is selected as the research area,the basic situation of the research area and the general situation of the hydropower migration project are described,and design the survey area sample questionnaire and data collection work in the research area.The fourth and fifth chapters are the core parts of the thesis.Research data of the fourth chapter is to use the relevant data collected from the migration resettlement sites of Pengba Town in Luding County,analyzing in turn the natural capital,human capital,financial capital,social capital and physical capital,and other farmers livelihood capital status changes before and after the immigration,then summing up the cause of these changes,and dividing livelihood models among the migrant farmers and expounds the transformation of the four types of different modes of livelihood.Finally,the problems in the process of livelihood transformation of immigrants are deeply understood through smi-structured interviews;The fifth chapter further explores the important factors affecting the livelihood transformation of hydropower migrant farmers through empirical analysis.The sixth chapter is the conclusion and policy suggestions.It summarizes the research conclusions of this thesis and puts forward policy suggestions on consolidating the achievements of poverty alleviation and realizing sustainable livelihood development of hydropower migrant farmers in western Sichuan ethnic minority areas based on the investigation.Through the analysis,this thesis draws the following research conclusions:First,the livelihood capital owned by hydropower migrant households before and after immigration will undergo significant changes,among which,the stock of human capital,financial capital and physical capital will significantly increase,while the stock of natural capital and social capital will decline.Secondly,the livelihood mode of hydropower migrant households will change radically before and after the migration,and the pure agricultural livelihood mode will basically disappear.Non-agricultural livelihood models dominate.The survey shows that the livelihood mode of farmers before immigration is all related to agriculture,but only 11% of the livelihood mode of farmers after immigration is related to agriculture,and other farmers all choose non-agricultural livelihood mode.This is because livelihood capital is the basis of the transformation of livelihood mode of hydropower migrant farmers,and the choice of livelihood mode varies with the endowment of livelihood capital.The empirical results show that natural capital,human capital and financial capital have the most significant impact on the transformation of farmers’ livelihood pattern.Thirdly,in addition to the influence of micro family factors,the sustainability of the livelihood of hydropower migrant farmers is also affected by government policies,highway construction,rural endowment insurance and other aspects.Among them,the people-friendly policy issued by the government plays a positive role in supporting the transformation of the livelihood mode of hydropower migrant farmers,but the people-friendly policy has a time cycle.Once the window period of the policy ends,it will become very difficult for some farmers to maintain their livelihood.Therefore,in order to promote the livelihood transformation of hydropower migrant farmers and realize the sustainability of their livelihood after the transformation,we need to do the following: First,formulate rural revitalization plans according to local conditions;Second,increase the level of non-agricultural employment of hydropower migrant households;Third,improve the level of social security of hydropower migrant farmers;Fourth,the follow-up issues concerning the resettlement of hydropower migrants should be properly resolved.