This dissertation research project by a cultural anthropology student at the University of California-Davis studies land use of pastoral households in Tanzania. The student will combine perspectives from studies of individual decision making and cultural ecology to quantify the effects of different constraints on land use within pastoral households. An individual-based spatial model of grazing intensity will be constructed. The advantage of an individual-based model is that it captures the variability identified at the household level and incorporates this information in characterizing landscape scale patterns of land use. Woody and herbaceous vegetation will be sampled across a gradient of grazing intensity, and the productivity of herds using areas with different grazing intensities will be monitored. Vegetation data will show resource availability and measures of productivity will address whether density dependent feedback affect pastoral production. This research will contribute a relatively rare analysis of individual variability in pastoral land use practices, and will advance the quantitative study of constraints on pastoral land use. By integrating household decisions, aggregated patterns of land use, and ecological outcomes, the proposed research will provide a more complete picture of the dynamics pastoral land use systems. The research also benefits the training of a young social scientist and advances our knowledge of this important region of the world.
