The herder's environment: a GIS case study of resource use patterns among pastoralists in Central Tibet
2011
Bauer, Kenneth | Magri, Antoni
This article investigates how environmental features such as altitude, aspect, slope, and vegetation cover structure resource use patterns among pastoralists in the Porong region of Central Tibet. Abundance, distribution (spatial and temporal), and use of forage resources in the study area were characterized by integrating field observations, participatory mapping, interviews, and remotely sensed images in a geographic information system (GIS). Georeferenced locations of livestock corrals enabled us to characterize seasonal grazing areas, resulting in a spatially explicit model of the environment in which Porong's herders operate. The methodology, which included the use of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values to assess inter- and intra-annual rangeland productivity, availed this description of the environmental variability with which these nomads cope. Using culturally nuanced and spatially explicit methodologies we can enhance our understanding of pastoral systems in limiting environments, hopefully to gain clearer estimations of how economic and policy changes might affect the livelihoods of livestock-dependent communities in Central Tibet and beyond.
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