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New
tools simplify
decision making in complex mountain
ecosystems |
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“If
we want to crack the
really hard poverty in
marginal environments,
the next logical step
will be to move from our
focus on the field to a
broader view of the
systems in which those
fields are embedded”
Pamela Anderson,
CIP DDG for Research |
Ji Qiumei is one of the first
Asian researchers to be trained
in the use of a new series of
modeling tools designed to help
policy makers make better decisions
about the management of mountain
ecosystems. Her training also
makes her one of a small but
growing cadre of Asian scientists
equipped to take on the challenge
of capturing the bigger picture
of the systems in which agriculture
is embedded.
In 2002, Ji completed 24 months
of training at CIP headquarters
as part of her PhD dissertation.
Ji, who is Tibet’s first
woman to get a PhD in agricultural
science, used her dissertation
research to conduct an inventory
of natural resources on the
Tibetan Plateau.
“The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
is Asia’s water tower,”
says Nyima Tashi, Director General
of the Plant Research
Institute of the Tibet Academy of Agricultural
and Animal Sciences (TAAAS).
“We once assumed that
the best way to spend our resources
would be in animal production
and crops, but Ji’s modeling
work showed us that our priorities
ought to be in maintaining the
integrity of our water supplies.”
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Water is an important and sometimes
controversial issue in the Himalayas.
What happens on the Tibetan
Plateau directly affects the
health of three of the world’s
major river systems—the
Yangtze, the Mekong, and the
Brahmaputra.
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“Our
analysis showed that Tibet’s
farming systems are not
designed to take advantage
of our water resources
in a way that benefits
local people or our neighbors,”
Ji says. The country’s
strong focus on maximizing
agricultural output is
literally spending down
its water resources and
diminishing the quality
of the supply for people
downstream. Efforts to
maximize the number of
animals that farmers produce,
she says, have led to
overgrazing and soil compaction,
which in turn increases
run off and erosion.
Ji notes that if policy
makers would encourage
animal producers to operate
only in those areas that
are best suited to the
task, and then factor
into the analysis water-related
revenues over time, the
policy environment would
likely change, as would
Tibet’s priorities
for agricultural research. |
The
Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
is Asia’s
water tower. What happens
there
directly affects the health
of
three of the world’s
major river
systems. |
Honest brokers
“Modelers are like honest
brokers,” says CIP modeler
Roberto Quiroz. “If they
do their jobs correctly they’ll
come to the process without
an agenda, without preconceived
notions.”
“With
modeling you can test different
options up front without committing
resources,” adds Quiroz.
“It’s a money saver,
especially in mountain environments
where it’s often difficult
to measure things in one place
and extrapolate the data to
another. With modeling you can
look at things from a systems
perspective.”
Quiroz notes that until recently,
modelers had little reason to
take on assignments in highland
areas. Changes began to occur
with the political commitment
provided by the 1992 Earth Summit
in Rio, as well as the availability
of new satellite images provided
by NASA and the European Space
Agency. Nonclassified satellite
images, however, are not sufficiently
detailed to allow scientists
to draw accurate conclusions,
Quiroz says.
Moving to another level
One of the key features of the
CIP models is that they have
the capacity to downscale satellite
imagery to the watershed level
and take into account tiny variations
in terrain and climate. “What
the CIP modeling team and its
partners did was develop tools
that can interpolate solar radiation,
rainfall, and temperature data
taken from historical weather
station data and contrast it
with the images derived from
satellite photos. That was really
the key,” he says.
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Case in point: For years,
researchers used expensive
and hard-to-construct
runoff plots to measure
soil erosion. If you want
to measure runoff in a
watershed accurately,
however, you need an unmanageable
number of such plots to
account for changes in
terrain. In this particular
case, the breakthrough
came with the construction
of mathematical models
that describe the energy
released when a raindrop
hits the soil and then
contrasts this information
with variables such as
soil type, rainfall patterns,
and plowing techniques.
The variables are put
into mathematical equations
that eliminate the need
to physically measure
runoff. The model also
tells you how long you
can crop the area without
eroding the land’s
capacity to produce food. |
Modeling
tools—including
satellite
imagery and geographic
information
software—are helping
scientists to
understand complex systems,
such as
Tibet’s hydrological
network. |
“We thought that
if we developed tools that could
help policy makers make better
predictions we could increase
the impact of traditional crop
and animal research and in the
process save development agencies
a great deal of money. That’s
why we got into modeling: to
build tools to help people who
make difficult decisions,”
Quiroz says.
CIP’s Deputy Director
General for Research, Pamela
Anderson, is emphatic about
the need for such tools. “I’m
not suggesting that we should
stop working in the traditional
areas of plant breeding or integrated
pest management,” says
Anderson. “We need to
continue strengthening our core
competencies. But, in addition,
we need to target our work at
the system level. That means
developing analytical and modeling
tools to increase our understanding
of complex, dynamic systems,
and training people to use those
tools.”
The Ecoregional Fund to Support
Methodological Initiatives,
the Swiss Agency for Development
and Cooperation, and the CGIAR
Systemwide Livestock Program
are among those who have acknowledged
this need by allocating funds
to support the CIP modeling
research.
And much more
“We’re working in
a lot of areas now, but we’re
probably best known for our
tradeoff analysis work in Ecuador,”
says Quiroz (see Tradeoff
modeling helps make critical
connections). “Before
that particular study was released
two years ago, most people thought
that the pesticides used on
potatoes had their greatest
impact on the environment. Tradeoff
modeling showed, however, that
human health is also affected,
so that pesticide policies in
the Andes needed to be redirected
to prevent poisonings and that
investment in health care for
farm workers who are exposed
to the chemicals is essential.”
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This
is just one in a range
of studies conducted by
CIP modelers, including
a project that produced
a solar radiation atlas
for the Peruvian national
weather service. To construct
the atlas, scientists
gathered historical records
from Peru’s weather
stations and ran them
through CIP’s climate
interpolation model. Peru’s
Ministry of Energy and
Mines is now using the
atlas as a guidebook in
a project that will put
in place thousands of
solar panels to bring
electricity to isolated
mountain areas. The atlas
will allow them to determine
where solar radiation
is sufficient to make
investment in the panels
worthwhile.
The atlas is also expected
to benefit agriculture.
Its maps will help agricultural
policy makers target areas
where Peru has potential
to initiate intensive,
competitive agriculture
that will hopefully lift
subsistence farmers out
of poverty, Quiroz says.
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Nomad
herders in Tibet are just
one component of a diversified
land use system that depends
on— and affects—the
stability of
water supplies. |
CIP’s modeling programs
are available free of charge
as CD-ROMs and on the internet,
in interactive environments
for distance education. To learn
more, please visit CIP’s
Virtual World, an interactive
website where researchers and
development experts can communicate
with CIP modelers and exchange
experiences in a 3D environment
(see http://inrm.cip.cgiar.org/res.htm).
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Hi-tech gear for highland
research
The environmental health
of mountain and hillside
areas has a direct impact
on the availability and
safety of human drinking
water, on our food supplies,
and, increasingly, on
political stability, says
Hugo Li Pun, CIP’s
Deputy Director General
for Corporate Development.
In an address to a special
session of the United
Nations General Assembly
at the launching of the
International Year of
the Mountains, Li Pun,
an expert on highland
agriculture, noted that
the importance of mountain
ecosystems was first highlighted
at the Earth Summit in
1992. The major issues
addressed there were summarized
in Chapter 13 of Agenda
21, the Rio Declaration
on Environment and Development.
“The Rio Summit
generated the political
will to undo hundreds
of years of mismanagement
and neglect. Ironically,
at the time, we didn’t
really have the tools
to act,” he says.
Since then, researchers
have armed themselves
with new hi-tech gear,
including computer models
that can accurately analyze
the health of mountain
ecosystems and help governments
and local communities
make more informed decisions
about managing natural
resources.
Some of the biggest improvements
since Rio have been in
the area of information
and computers, Li Pun
notes. E-mail and the
worldwide web, combined
with the development of
computer simulation models,
have created opportunities
to exchange information
and exciting new ways
to solve problems.
Researchers are also better
able to judge the potential
of new technologies before
they commit resources
to them. For example,
last year CIP social scientists,
working in tandem with
GIS specialists and crop
scientists in Africa,
used satellite imagery
and newly installed geographic
information software to
calculate the potential
of new crop varieties
to alleviate malnutrition
in the East African highlands.
“In the past, it
might have taken years
to gather that kind of
information, if it could
have been done at all,”
Li Pun says. |
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Tradeoff
modeling helps
make critical
connections
Following on the
success of CIP’s
pesticide tradeoff
work in Ecuador
(see CIP’s
Annual Report
2001), project
scientists are
preparing to use
the tradeoff analysis
approach to demonstrate
the importance
of coordinating
research on environment,
health, and natural
resources. “Our
hypothesis is
that if you want
to crack the cycle
of poverty and
resource degradation,
you need to look
at the way that
food production
interacts with
health and the
environment,”
says John M. Antle,
a production economist
at Montana State
University and
long-time CIP
collaborator.
Antle believes
that there are
substantial connections
between crop productivity,
the health of
farm households,
and soil and water
degradation. Until
now, however,
each of these
topics has been
treated by separate
scientific disciplines
and diverse government
agencies operating
with independent
agendas. “There’s
a clear correlation
between poverty
and short-term
planning horizons,
which means that
people often don’t
make the needed
long-term investments.
If you’re
an African farmer
suffering from
tuberculosis or
parasites, let
alone AIDS, it’s
unlikely that
you’ll have
the inclination
to do much about
the long-term
health of your
soil,” Antle
says.
Starting in 2004,
Antle proposes
to use an upgraded
version of the
tradeoff simulation
model used by
CIP in Ecuador
to make the case
to policy makers.
“What we
are proposing
are two contrasting
studies. One will
investigate economic–health–environment
interactions associated
with pesticide
use in the intensive
horticultural
cropping systems
typical of the
peri-urban agricultural
zone surrounding
Nairobi. The other
study will examine
nutrition, infectious
diseases, and
land degradation
in the Peruvian
Andes, a more
marginal agricultural
environment.”
To accomplish
these objectives
the current generation
of tradeoff modeling
tools will be
expanded and efforts
will be made to
acquire and use
data more efficiently.
Advances made
in these areas
over the past
5 years will be
incorporated into
existing software,
Antle says.
The studies are
unlikely to provide
a quick technological
fix, however.
Rather, the research
should facilitate
a more complete
understanding
of existing strategies,
as well as their
limitations. “If
a quick fix is
out there we may
find it, but a
more likely outcome
is that we can
bring about a
more realistic
and balanced assessment
of the technology
and policy options
that exist. That
kind of assessment
could help research
administrators
and policy makers
take into account
the health and
environmental
dimensions of
agricultural systems.”
To illustrate
the point, Antle
notes that if
this type of integrated
assessment of
agricultural systems
had been available
in the 1970s or
1980s, agricultural
policy makers
might have invested
more heavily in
integrated pest
management and
natural resource
management as
complements to
the introduction
of high-yielding
crop varieties.
Those investments
could have helped
avoid some of
the adverse consequences
that are now associated
with agricultural
development based
on intensively
managed monoculture
systems. |
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