Water use in agro-pastoral livelihood systems within the Bulgan River watershed of the Altay Mountains, Western Mongolia

Jordan, Greta; Goenster‐Jordan, Sven; Lamparter, Gabriele-Johanna; Ulziisuren, Baigal; Soninkishig, Nergui; Schlecht, Eva; Buerkert, Andreas

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2017.09.008

Cited by 12 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 61 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Yet, even in the clusters focussing on livestock activities (Ltm, Lm), a high share of HHs managed croplands [82]. Likewise, haymaking areas are vast and are present in each cluster on both sides of the border and used to build up winter hay stocks ( Figure A3C).…”

Section: Relevance Of Land For Livelihood Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Likewise, haymaking areas are vast and are present in each cluster on both sides of the border and used to build up winter hay stocks ( Figure A3C). These hayfields are mostly located along the Qinghe (China) and Bulgan (Mongolia) Rivers, in less productive sites with poor soil, temporary flooding and the absence of irrigation facilities [82]. Fertiliser is not applied and the herbaceous biomass production (of natural vegetation) is low.…”

Section: Relevance Of Land For Livelihood Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many of the latter families overcome the winter fodder shortage by long distance tracking with small ruminants [7]. Whereas the Chinese Ltm HHs practise transhumance in a similarly intensive manner (distances > 200 km/year), haymaking replaces tracking [35,82] in clusters VLs (both countries) and Lm (Mongolia). Even though haymaking is a rather new strategy on both sides of the border, introduced in Mongolia during the socialist era [35] while allocated to households of Qinghe in 1985 [83], in both countries "the purchase and storage of forage has become an important adaptation strategy to cope with uncertainties in precipitation and vegetation productivity" [63].…”

Section: Relevance Of Land For Livelihood Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Evolution of Rural Livelihood Strategies in a Remote Sino-Mongolian Border Area: A Cross-Country Analysis

et al. 2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ecologically sound natural resources management is still the backbone of rural livelihoods in many regions of the world. The Altai-Dzungarian region between China and Mongolia constitutes an ideal site to study how political, economic, infrastructural, and cultural differences affect rural livelihoods. Structured semi-quantitative interviews were conducted with 483 households on both sides to characterise their current livelihood strategies and assess the importance of the various activities for the households' current socio-economic situation by means of the categorical principal component and two-step cluster analysis. In total, four livelihood clusters were identified across both regions, whereby one cluster was only present in Mongolia. In general, all clusters mirrored the transition from almost pure pastoralist to agro-pastoralist livelihood strategies. While animal husbandry was more common in Mongolia and crop farming more common in China, most households in both countries pursued a rather mixed approach. The composition of the herds, as well as the richness and diversity of the livestock species, differed significantly between the countries and was generally higher in Mongolia. Supplementary feedstuff and pesticide and fertiliser use were higher in China, along with diversification of produces. Our analysis indicates that until very recently the livelihood strategies on both sides of the border were the same, manifesting in the fact that we can define three identical clusters across countries (environment factor) even though there are slight differences in land, livestock and asset endowment.

show abstract

Section: Relevance Of Land For Livelihood Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Relevance Of Land For Livelihood Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Relevance Of Land For Livelihood Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Evolution of Rural Livelihood Strategies in a Remote Sino-Mongolian Border Area: A Cross-Country Analysis

et al. 2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This makes it difficult for herders to engage in precautious actions early enough in the vegetation growth cycle. If not already executed as a routine activity, protective measures such as hay-making are constrained by the availability of family labour and are only taking place after families and herds have moved from summer to autumn pastures (Jordan et al , 2018.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the framework of a larger research project that focused on the effects of climatic changes and land use intensification in the transborder Altai-Dzungarian region of Mongolia and China (Jordan et al , 2018, four summer pasture settlements were purposefully selected for the present study. These were:…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

The relevance of herders’ local ecological knowledge on coping with livestock losses during harsh winters in western Mongolia

Soma

Schlecht

2018

Pastoralism

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In many regions of the world, traditional and local ecological knowledge is still important today for coping with environmental challenges. This study explored the relevance of such knowledge for predicting and coping with harsh winter conditions (dzud) in a remote area of western Mongolia, where government support to disasteraffected herders is restricted by weak infrastructure. Structured face-to-face interviews were held in 50 households (HHs), addressing aspects of livestock possession and management as well as disaster prediction and mitigation. The responses disclosed that livestock losses during the 2009/10 dzud averaged 112.4 animals per HH, equaling nearly 80% of the interviewees' total livestock possession in summer 2013. To reduce such high losses in the future, herders planned to improve their hay-making efforts and winter pen preparation. However, they also stated that the earliest signs for a dzud occur in September, when it is already too late for substantial hay-making. Therefore, some herders underlined the necessity of maintaining livestock productivity through segregated summer grazing of specific animal groups, controlled mating and early sale of weak livestock. Animals are then entering a harsh winter in good body condition. National and international organizations wishing to support livestock keepers in this and similar regions should therefore highlight the relevance of local strategies for disaster prevention and support community-based approaches that can compensate for the prevalent lack of family labour.

show abstract

Review of Distributed Hydrological Models and the Development and Application of SWAT Model

Li,

Cheng,

Fei

et al. 2024

Environmental Science and Engineering

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Water use in agro-pastoral livelihood systems within the Bulgan River watershed of the Altay Mountains, Western Mongolia

Cited by 12 publications

References 61 publications

Evolution of Rural Livelihood Strategies in a Remote Sino-Mongolian Border Area: A Cross-Country Analysis

Evolution of Rural Livelihood Strategies in a Remote Sino-Mongolian Border Area: A Cross-Country Analysis

The relevance of herders’ local ecological knowledge on coping with livestock losses during harsh winters in western Mongolia

Review of Distributed Hydrological Models and the Development and Application of SWAT Model

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About