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Journal of Arid Land
Journal of Arid Land  2020, Vol. 12 Issue (3): 522-537    DOI: 10.1007/s40333-020-0122-6
Research article     
Market opportunities do not explain the ability of herders to meet livelihood objectives over winter on the Mongolian Plateau
BAI Haihua1, YIN Yanting1, Jane ADDISON2, HOU Yulu3, WANG Linhe4, HOU Xiangyang1,*()
1 Grassland Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Huhhot 010010, China
2 CSIRO Land and Water, ATSIP, James Cook University, Townsville 4811, Australia
3 Agriculture Information Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
4 College of Ecology and Environmental Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China
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Abstract  

Drylands under pastoral land use are considered one of the most vulnerable social-ecological systems to global climate change, but the herders' abilities to adapt to the different extreme weather events have received little attention in the drylands. Herders on the Mongolian Plateau (MP; including Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China and Mongolia), have had a long history of adapting climatic variability and extreme weather events. However, it is unclear how changes such as increased levels of infrastructure and market integration affect the ability of herders to achieve the key livelihood objectives: the minimisation of the death and abortion rates of livestock in the winter. Here, we used remotely sensed and household survey data to map, model and explore the climate exposure and sensitivity of herders in the settled area (Inner Mongolia of China) and nomadic area (Mongolia) in the winter of 2012-2013. We aimed to quantify the multi-scaled characteristics of both climate exposure and sensitivity through the lens of key adaptive strategies utilized by herders. Our results showed that the higher levels of infrastructure and market integration, and the lower levels of remoteness on the MP did not increase the herders' ability to achieve the key livelihood objectives. Our results also suggested that exposure to the snow that is comparatively greater than the long-term average (cumulative exposure) may be more important in determining the social-ecological vulnerability than absolute exposure. We suggested that neither the risk management strategies available to these herders, nor the demographic variables, could compensate for the mode of production governing the pastoral systems. Our study could provide further evidence for the complex and scaled nature of climate exposure and sensitivity, and the results imply that any analysis of the relationship among exposure, sensitivity and vulnerability of pastoral households to climate change in the drylands will require a multi-scaled and interdisciplinary approach.

Key words： climate change      extreme weather events      adaptive strategies      vulnerability      households      winter      livelihood     
Received: 28 May 2018      Published: 10 May 2020
Corresponding Authors:
About author: *Corresponding authors: HOU Xiangyang (E-mail: houxy16@vip.126.com)

The first and second authors contributed equally to this work.
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Cite this article:

BAI Haihua, YIN Yanting, Jane ADDISON, HOU Yulu, WANG Linhe, HOU Xiangyang. Market opportunities do not explain the ability of herders to meet livelihood objectives over winter on the Mongolian Plateau. Journal of Arid Land, 2020, 12(3): 522-537.

URL:

http://jal.xjegi.com/10.1007/s40333-020-0122-6     OR     http://jal.xjegi.com/Y2020/V12/I3/522

Variable Measurement item
Death rate Death rate of livestock (%). Death rate_SL (1) and death rate_LL (1): death rate of small and large livestock on the Mongolia Plateau, respectively. Death rate_SL (2) and death rate_LL (2): death rate of small and large livestock in the settled area, respectively. Death rate_SL (3) and death rate_LL (3): death rate of small and large livestock in the nomadic area, respectively. Death rate_SL (4) and death rate_LL (4): death rate of small and large livestock in the three sites (Taibus, Zhenglan and Duolun) in the settled area, respectively. Death rate_SL (5) and death rate_LL (5): death rate of small and large livestock in Bayangol in the nomadic area, respectively.
Abortion rate Abortion rate of livestock (%). Abortion rate_SL (1) and abortion rate_LL (1): abortion rate of small and large livestock on the Mongolia Plateau, respectively. Abortion rate_SL (2) and abortion rate_LL (2): abortion rate of small and large livestock in the settled area, respectively. Abortion rate_SL (3) and abortion rate_LL (3): abortion rate of small and large livestock in the nomadic area, respectively. Abortion rate_SL (4) and abortion rate_LL (4): abortion rate of small and large livestock in the three sites (Taibus, Zhenglan and Duolun) in the settled area, respectively. Abortion rate_SL (5) and abortion rate_LL (5): abortion rate of small and large livestock in Bayangolin in the nomadic area, respectively.
Area code The settled area=1, and the nomadic area=2.
Latitude Latitude (°N).
Elevation Elevation above the sea level (m).
Education Highest education level of interviewers, which was classed into the following categories: 0=no education; 1=primary school; 2=junior high school; 3=senior high school; and 4=college education.
Age Age (a).
Snow clearing Presence of government facilitated clearing of snow around the homestead and winter shelter. 1, if there is snow clearing by government; 0, otherwise.
Shelter area Total floor area of winter shelter (m2).
Total forage Total dry weight of forage self-prepared and purchased by the household (kg).
Total fodder Total dry weight of fodder grown with or without irrigation and cut by the household (kg).
Livestock number Number of livestock owned by the household through the winter (sheep units).
Snow depth Snow depth in January (cm).
Access to road Distance from households to the nearest road (km).
Table 1 Quantitative variables elicited during the household survey
Fig. 1 Spatial and temporal distributions of snow depth in the winter of 2012-2013
Fig. 2 Total days (a) and longest days (b) of snow cover in the winter of 2012-2013
Fig. 3 Standard deviation between the snow depth in the winter of 2012-2013 and the mean snow depth during the period of 2002-2012
Area Site Proportion of herders impacted (%) Snow clearing percentage (%) Shelter area (m2)* Forage per sheep unit (kg) Fodder per sheep unit (kg) Livestock income (CNY)
Settled area Taibus 100 95 143
(0-300)		 125
(0-333)		 43
(4-181)		 60,618
(5200-167,840)
Duolun 94 78 110
(0-300)		 204
(0-333)		 44
(5-108)		 49,919
(0-180,240)
Zhenglan 97 69 111
(0-360)		 199
(0-484)		 53
(0-438)		 114,556
(0-475,080)
Xilinhot 85 44 110
(30-600)		 125
(0-191)		 17
(1-78)		 232,199
(50,700-630,656)
Abag 85 65 125
(0-400)		 95
(0-450)		 26
(0-150)		 207,351
(21,400-660,120)
West Ujimqin 93 70 129
(0-400)		 122
(0-350)		 18
(2-130)		 194,805
(20,375-772,800)
Mean 92 68 121
(0-600)		 141
(0-484)		 33
(0-438)		 156,047
(0-772,800)
Nomadic area Bayandelger 31 23 35
(0-100)		 3
(0-14)		 5
(0-48)		 164,982
(2704-1,244,745)
Sukhbaatar 50 46 69
(0-800)		 4
(0-13)		 1
(0-11)		 37,759
(2272-102,370)
Undurkhaan 28 62 115
(0-600)		 11
(1-15)		 2
(0-21)		 34,149
(4830-76,064)
Batnorov 10 52 79
(0-280)		 9
(0-36)		 3
(0-37)		 44,597
(1080-193,345)
Bayangol 16 58 159
(0-900)		 80
(5-694)		 15
(0-144)		 155,947
(1153-1,694,615)
Mean 27 38 91
(0-900)		 21
(0-694)		 5
(0-144)		 85,797
(1081-1,694,615)
Table 2 Comparisons of parameters for key adaptive strategies utilized by herders in the winter of 2012-2013
Area Site Death rate Abortion rate
Small livestock Large livestock Small livestock Large livestock
Settled area Taibus 0.173 0.026 0.034 0.033
Duolun 0.111 0.043 0.031 0.045
Zhenglan 0.080 0.048 0.055 0.055
Xilinhot 0.077 0.001 0.069 0.003
Abag 0.067 0.020 0.076 0.040
West Ujimqin 0.073 0.015 0.029 0.019
Mean 0.089 0.025 0.053 0.036
Nomadic area Bayandelger 0.031 0.019 0.045 0.030
Sukhbaatar 0.050 0.000 0.099 0.074
Undurkhaan 0.054 0.023 0.097 0.056
Batnorov 0.034 0.002 0.007 0.037
Bayangol 0.006 0.000 0.026 0.000
Mean 0.033 0.006 0.019 0.006
Table 3 Death and abortion rates of small and large livestock in the winter of 2012-2013
Table 4 Regression results about the death and abortion rates of livestock in the winter of 2012-2013
Independent
variable		 Settled area Nomadic area
Death
rate_SL (4)		 Death
rate_LL (4)		 Abortion
rate_SL (4)		 Abortion
rate_LL (4)		 Death
rate_SL (5)		 Death
rate_LL
(5)		 Abortion
rate_SL (5)		 Abortion
rate_LL
(5)
Latitude -0.2611** 1.0208** -0.1407 1.0789* 0.0415 - 0.4415*** -
Elevation -170.3728 116.9581*** -29.2672 111.1882** 89.9787 - 796.9826 -
Education -52.6690** -12.4954 -3.3546 -13.3795 2.6314 - 24.9740 -
Age -3.4261* -1.1045 1.2161 -1.1117 -0.0207 - -0.2888 -
Snow clearing -27.3267 21.5546 19.8439 26.0318 6.2191 - -29.0801 -
Shelter area -0.4477* -0.2076 -0.1483 -0.2367 0.0106 - 0.0774 -
Total forage 0.0012* 0.0007* 0.0012*** 0.0007* -0.0001 - -0.0005 -
Total fodder 0.0048 0.0060*** 0.0003 0.0062*** 0.0001 - 0.0103* -
Livestock
number		 -0.0539 -0.1192 0.0131 -0.1417 0.0065 - 0.0237 -
Access to road -6.3341* -3.2693* -0.0547 -3.2307 0.2663 - -3.8890* -
Snow depth -11.8029 1.9742 10.4069 1.2794 -9.2525 - -98.2392*** -
Constant 8139.3270 -6236.0630 1213.7350 -6051.7450 -4343.2620 - -38,271.3300 -
R2 0.2662 0.3091 0.2011 0.3015 0.1594 - 0.7307 -
Table 5 Regression results regarding the death and abortion rates of livestock in Taibus, Zhenglan and Duolun in the settled area and in Bayangol in the nomadic area
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