The goal is to study interrelationships among a) population dynamics, b) changes in patterns of land use, and c) social and economic change over the past two decades in Nang Rong, Thailand. The study site, a relatively poor district located in the Northeast of the country, has experienced dramatic deforestation, the rapid growth of market agriculture, high rates of out-migration, and intensive social and economic development. The study marries the data, tools, and perspectives of social demography and physical geography.
Aim# 1 is to combine extant social surveys, administrative records, maps, and remotely sensed data into an integrated data set. The data set will be multilevel. It will include observations for individuals, households, villages, and the entire district. It will also include the characteristics of patches and landscapes. It will cover at least a decade for key social and demographic variables, and more than two decades of information on land use derived from the satellite images. Whereas most studies of population and land use have focused at higher levels of aggregation, the Nang Rong data (and analyses based on them) are particularly strong at lower levels of aggregation (individual, household, village, landscape, patch). A Geographic Information System (GIS) is the primary tool for integration.
Aim #2 uses the integrated data set as the basis for a series of interrelated descriptive studies that explore the impact of international markets for cassava and other cash crops on land use, deforestation in relation to the extension of road networks and settlement patterns, and population change in relation to the extensification and intensification of agriculture. The mapping and integrative capabilities of the GIS are central to these descriptive studies. Building on these studies Aim # 3 is to investigate the spatial organization of the landscape around villages in relation to social and environmental forces. Using spatial metrics to develop a landscape signature through a satellite time-series is a new approach to understanding landscape organization as a discriminant element of village form and function, and linking the satellite data with social surveys is another innovative element. This analysis will both inform and be informed by social demographic analyses that incorporate spatially derived measures into multilevel statistical analyses.
Aim #4 is to examine household decisions about land use and migration within a context of competition for resources and in response to environmental endowments and constraints.
Aim #5 is to investigate the consequences of past high fertility for size of landholdings and for the fragmentation of agricultural plots and to explore the impact of the availability of forested land on the decisions made by newly married couples about where to live.
| Tang, Wenwu; Malanson, George P; Entwisle, Barbara (2009) Simulated village locations in Thailand: A multi-scale model including a neural network approach. Landsc Ecol 24:557-575 |
| Entwisle, B; Rindfuss, R R; Walsh, S J et al. (1997) Geographic information systems, spatial network analysis, and contraceptive choice. Demography 34:171-87 |
