Climate variability, political crises, and historical population displacements in Ethiopia

Comenetz, Joshua; Caviedes, César N.

doi:10.1016/j.hazards.2003.08.001

Cited by 38 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…In some extreme examples, a regime shift can be identified by very significant changes. Notable examples include the Dust Bowl period of the 1930s in North America, when a prolonged drought rendered millions of hectares of farmland unproductive, and displaced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes [21]; the Ethiopian Famine in the 1980s, when a relatively minor drought triggered a catastrophic famine [22][23][24]; or the Irish Potato Famine, when the failure of a single crop caused a permanent depopulation of western Ireland [25,26]. Although extremely important, studying such tragedies lends itself to a qualitative case study-based research approach, and are difficult to analyze quantitatively, for a sample of other case studies see [27,28].…”

Section: Resilience and Agricultural Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape diversity and the resilience of agricultural returns: a portfolio analysis of land-use patterns and economic returns from lowland agriculture

2013

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Abstract

Background

Conventional agriculture is increasingly based on highly specialized, highly productive farms. It has been suggested that 1) this specialization leads to farms that lack resilience to changing market and environmental conditions; and 2) that by decreasing agricultural diversity, the resilience of the farming system also decreases.

Methods

We used agricultural gross margin (GM) forecasts from 1966 to 2010 and remote sensing data from agricultural landscapes in the lowland UK, in conjunction with modern portfolio theory, to test the hypothesis that decreasing land-use diversity results in landscapes that provide higher, but more volatile, economic returns. We considered the role of spatial scale on the expected levels of volatility and resilience of agricultural returns.

Results

We found that: 1) there was a strong linear trade-off between expected GMs and the expected volatility of those GMs in real lowland agricultural landscapes in the UK; 2) land-use diversification was negatively correlated with expected GMs from agriculture, and positively correlated with decreasing expected volatility in GMs; 3) the resilience of agricultural returns was positively correlated with the diversity of agricultural land use, and the resilience of agricultural returns rose quickly with increased land-holding size at small spatial extents, but this effect diminished after landholdings reached 12,000 hectares.

Conclusions

Land-use diversity may have an important role in ensuring resilient agricultural returns in the face of uncertain market and environmental conditions, and land-holding size plays a pivotal role in determining the relationships between resilience and returns at a landscape scale. Creating finer-grained land-use patterns based on pre-existing local land uses may increase the resilience of individual farms, while maintaining aggregate yield across landscapes.

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Section: Resilience and Agricultural Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape diversity and the resilience of agricultural returns: a portfolio analysis of land-use patterns and economic returns from lowland agriculture

2013

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“…Drastic droughts in the 70’s and early 80’s have caused a significant number of people to move from the northern highlands to the tsetse-infested south-western region in search of fertile land [ 6 ]. Since the 70’s, this situation has worsened by repeated abnormal climatic fluctuations linked to El Niño [ 7 ]. Furthermore, new governmental land use regulations that were adopted between 1987 and 2005 resulted in a threefold increase in utilised agricultural land [ 8 , 9 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial distribution of Glossina sp. and Trypanosoma sp. in south-western Ethiopia

Abdi

Tasew²,

Olani

et al. 2015

Parasites Vectors

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BackgroundAccurate information on the distribution of the tsetse fly is of paramount importance to better control animal trypanosomosis. Entomological and parasitological surveys were conducted in the tsetse belt of south-western Ethiopia to describe the prevalence of trypanosomosis (PoT), the abundance of tsetse flies (AT) and to evaluate the association with potential risk factors.MethodsThe study was conducted between 2009 and 2012. The parasitological survey data were analysed by a random effects logistic regression model, whereas the entomological survey data were analysed by a Poisson regression model. The percentage of animals with trypanosomosis was regressed on the tsetse fly count using a random effects logistic regression model.ResultsThe following six risk factors were evaluated for PoT (i) altitude: significant and inverse correlation with trypanosomosis, (ii) annual variation of PoT: no significant difference between years, (iii) regional state: compared to Benishangul-Gumuz (18.0 %), the three remaining regional states showed significantly lower PoT, (iv) river system: the PoT differed significantly between the river systems, (iv) sex: male animals (11.0 %) were more affected than females (9.0 %), and finally (vi) age at sampling: no difference between the considered classes. Observed trypanosome species were T. congolense (76.0 %), T. vivax (18.1 %), T. b. brucei (3.6 %), and mixed T. congolense/vivax (2.4 %).The first four risk factors listed above were also evaluated for AT, and all have a significant effect on AT. In the multivariable model only altitude was retained with AT decreasing with increasing altitude. Four different Glossina species were identified i.e. G. tachinoides (52.0 %), G. pallidipes (26.0 %), G.morsitans submorsitans (15.0 %) and G. fuscipes fuscipes (7.0 %). Significant differences in catches/trap/day between districts were observed for each species. No association could be found between the tsetse fly counts and trypanosomosis prevalence.ConclusionsTrypanosomosis remains a constraint to livestock production in south-western Ethiopia. Four Glossina and three Trypanosoma species were observed. Altitude had a significant impact on AT and PoT. PoT is not associated with AT, which could be explained by the importance of mechanical transmission. This needs to be investigated further as it might jeopardize control strategies that target the tsetse fly population.

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“…Taken together, this research suggests that the social and ecological context in which climatic problems occur is likely to be as important, if not more so, than the climatic shock itself (Watts and Bohle 1993, Turner et al 2003, Ericksen 2008). This observation has been confirmed by qualitative historic case studies that show relatively small environmental problems can cause significant consequences depending on socioeconomic constraints (Comenetz andCaviedes 2002, Fraser 2003), as well as by quantitative work on the socioeconomic factors that make grain harvests sensitive to rainfall anomalies (Fraser et al 2008, Simelton et al 2009). …”

Section: Background Literaturementioning

confidence: 83%

Assessing Vulnerability to Climate Change in Dryland Livelihood Systems: Conceptual Challenges and Interdisciplinary Solutions

Fraser¹,

Dougill²,

Hubacek³

et al. 2011

E&S

149

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ABSTRACT. Over 40% of the earth's land surface are drylands that are home to approximately 2.5 billion people. Livelihood sustainability in drylands is threatened by a complex and interrelated range of social, economic, political, and environmental changes that present significant challenges to researchers, policy makers, and, above all, rural land users. Dynamic ecological and environmental change models suggest that climate change induced drought events may push dryland systems to cross biophysical thresholds, causing a long-term drop in agricultural productivity. Therefore, research is needed to explore how development strategies and other socioeconomic changes help livelihoods become more resilient and robust at a time of growing climatic risk and uncertainty. As a result, the overarching goal of this special feature is to conduct a structured comparison of how livelihood systems in different dryland regions are affected by drought, thereby making methodological, empirical, and theoretical contributions to our understanding of how these types of social-ecological systems may be vulnerable to climate change. In introducing these issues, the purpose of this editorial is to provide an overview of the two main intellectual challenges of this work, namely: (1) how to conceptualize vulnerability to climate change in coupled social-ecological systems; and (2) the methodological challenges of anticipating trends in vulnerability in dynamic environments.

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Climate variability, political crises, and historical population displacements in Ethiopia

Cited by 38 publications

References 29 publications

Landscape diversity and the resilience of agricultural returns: a portfolio analysis of land-use patterns and economic returns from lowland agriculture

Landscape diversity and the resilience of agricultural returns: a portfolio analysis of land-use patterns and economic returns from lowland agriculture

Spatial distribution of Glossina sp. and Trypanosoma sp. in south-western Ethiopia

Assessing Vulnerability to Climate Change in Dryland Livelihood Systems: Conceptual Challenges and Interdisciplinary Solutions

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