Paul McCord

Putting the "E" in SES: unpacking the ecology in the Ostrom social- ecological system framework

The Ostrom social-ecological system (SES) framework offers an interdisciplinary tool for studies of linked human-natural systems. However, its origin in the social sciences belies the effectiveness of its interdisciplinary ambitions and undermines its ability to cope with ecological complexity. To narrow the gap between inherently dynamic ecological systems and the SES framework, we need to explicitly recognize that SES outcomes are coproduced by social systems in which choices are made, as well as an ecological system with a diverse assortment of dynamic natural processes that mediate the effect of those choices. We illustrate the need for more explicit incorporation of ecological attributes into the SES framework by presenting a case study of a community-managed forest in Indiana, USA. A preliminary set of ecological attributes are also proposed for inclusion in the SES framework with the aim of spurring interest in further development of a truly interdisciplinary framework for the study of SESs.

Community Water Governance on Mount Kenya: An Assessment Based on Ostrom’s Design Principles of Natural Resource Management

Kenyan river basin governance underwent a pioneering reform in the Water Act of 2002, which established new community water-management institutions. This article focuses on community water projects in the Likii Water Resource Users Association in the Upper Ewaso Ng’iro River basin on Mount Kenya, and the extent to which their features are consistent with Ostrom’s design principles of natural resource management. Although the projects have developed solid institutional structures, pressures such as hydroclimatic change, population growth, and water inequality challenge their ability to manage their water resources. Institutional homogeneity across the different water projects and congruence with the design principles is not necessarily a positive factor. Strong differences in household water flows within and among the projects point to the disconnection between apparently successful institutions and their objectives, such as fair and equitable water allocation.

Climate Change and Risk Projection: Dynamic Spatial Models of Tsetse and African Trypanosomiasis in Kenya

African trypanosomiasis, otherwise known as sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in animals, is a parasitic protist passed cyclically by the tsetse fly. Despite more than a century of control and eradication efforts, the fly remains widely distributed across Africa and coextensive with other prevalent diseases. Control and planning are hampered by spatially and temporally variant vector distributions, ecologically irrelevant boundaries, and neglect. Tsetse are particularly well suited to move into previously disease-free areas under climate change scenarios, placing unprepared populations at risk. Here we present the modeling framework ATcast, which combines a dynamically downscaled regional climate model with a temporally and spatially dynamic species distribution model to predict tsetse populations over space and time. These modeled results are integrated with Kenyan population data to predict, for the period 2050 to 2059, exposure potential to tsetse and, by association, sleeping sickness and nagana across Kenya.

Population vulnerability and disability in Kenya's tsetse fly habitats.

Background Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT), also referred to as sleeping sickness, and African Animal Trypanosomaisis (AAT), known as nagana, are highly prevalent parasitic vector-borne diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. Humans acquire trypanosomiasis following the bite of a tsetse fly infected with the protozoa Trypanosoma brucei (T.b.) spp. –i.e., T.b. gambiense in West and Central Africa and T.b. rhodesiense in East and Southern Africa. Over the last decade HAT diagnostic capacity to estimate HAT prevalence has improved in active case-finding areas but enhanced passive surveillance programs are still lacking in much of rural sub-Saharan Africa. Methodology/Principal Findings This retrospective-cross-sectional study examined the use of national census data (1999) to estimate population vulnerability and disability in Kenyas 7 tsetse belts to assess the potential of HAT-acquired infection in those areas. A multilevel study design estimated the likelihood of disability in individuals, nested within households, nested within tsetse fly habitats of varying levels of poverty. Residents and recent migrants of working age were studied. Tsetse flys impact on disability was conceptualised via two exposure pathways: directly from the bite of a pathogenic tsetse fly resulting in HAT infection or indirectly, as the potential for AAT takes land out of agricultural production and diseased livestock leads to livestock morbidity and mortality, contributing to nutritional deficiencies and poverty. Tsetse belts that were significantly associated with increased disability prevalence were identified and the direct and indirect exposure pathways were evaluated. Conclusions/Significance Incorporating reports on disability from the national census is a promising surveillance tool that may enhance future HAT surveillance programs in sub-Saharan Africa. The combined burdens of HAT and AAT and the opportunity costs of agricultural production in AAT areas are likely contributors to disability within tsetse-infested areas. Future research will assess changes in the spatial relationships between high tsetse infestation and human disability following the release of the Kenya 2009 census at the local level.

Modeling ecohydrological dynamics of smallholder strategies for food production in dryland agricultural systems

In dryland environments, characterized by low and frequently variable rainfall, smallholder farmers must take crop water sensitivity into account along with other characteristics like seed availability and market price when deciding what to plant. In this paper we use the results of surveys conducted among smallholders located near Mount Kenya to identify clusters of farmers devoting different fractions of their land to subsistence and market crops. Additionally, we explore the tradeoffs between water-insensitive but low-value subsistence crops and a water-sensitive but high-value market crop using a numerical model that simulates soil moisture dynamics and crop production over multiple growing seasons. The cluster analysis shows that most farmers prefer to plant either only subsistence crops or only market crops, with a minority choosing to plant substantial fractions of both. The model output suggests that the value a farmer places on a successful growing season, a measure of risk aversion, plays a large role in whether the farmer chooses a subsistence or market crop strategy. Furthermore, access to irrigation, makes market crops more appealing, even to very risk-averse farmers. We then conclude that the observed clustering may result from different levels of risk aversion and access to irrigation.

Household-level heterogeneity of water resources within common-pool resource systems

Prior work has demonstrated the ability of common property systems to sustain institutional arrangements governing natural resources over long periods of time. Much of this work has focused on irrigation systems where upstream users agree to management arrangements that distribute water resources across both upstream and downstream users. A series of design principles have been identified that tend to lead to long-term sustained water management in these types of irrigation systems. However, this prior work has focused on the aggregate outcomes of the water system, and there has been little work evaluating the heterogeneity of water delivery within irrigation systems in developing countries. Heterogeneity of water resources within these systems has implications for livelihood outcomes because it can be indicative of a social, technological, and/or biophysical element facilitating or detracting from water delivery. We present a multilevel analysis of households nested within 25 smallholder irrigation systems in Kenya. Specifically, we examine household-level water outcomes (i.e., average flow rate and reliability of water provisioning) and the community-level and household-level drivers that affect household water outcomes. These drivers include physical infrastructure, institutional infrastructure, and biophysical variables. Much of the common-pool resource literature addresses the rule clusters responsible for natural resource outcomes, but by considering an array of both institutional and physical features and the water delivery outcomes produced at the household level, we offer new explanations for water disparities within smallholder-operated irrigation systems. We further discuss the ability of user-group members to reshape their water delivery outcomes through information exchange.

Multilevel Governance of Irrigation Systems and Adaptation to Climate Change in Kenya

Multilevel governance of common-pool natural resources has been shown under certain conditions to sustain resources over time even when faced with various social and environmental disturbances or shocks. In the case of irrigation systems, evidence shows that multilevel institutional arrangements that include communities in a decentralized system of governance can function better than centralized systems. Kenya has implemented a legislative framework for water governance that decentralizes many aspects of water management to local levels, resulting in a multilevel institutional regime. Community water projects are empowered to manage some aspects of water resources for irrigation and domestic use—purportedly a level at which decision-makers are better suited to adapt to local dynamics. However, climate change and population increase constantly challenge the ability of these water projects to modify rules for water allocation so that all water demands are met. In this chapter, we describe the governance structure of community water projects near Mt. Kenya and illustrate the challenges for adaptive capacity with respect to different social and environmental disturbances.

Tsetse and trypanosomiasis: Eradication, control, and coexistence in Africa

Foreword Billie Lee Turner II Chapter 1: Human Health at the Nexus of Ecologies and Politics Kelley A. Crews and Brian King Section I: Health within Social and Ecological Systems Chapter 2: Positioning Health in a Socio-Ecological Systems Framework Kelley A. Crews Chapter 3: Capitals and Context: Bridging Health and Livelihoods in Smallholder Frontiers Leah K. VanWey, James R. Hull, and Gilvan Guedes Chapter 4: Change in Tropical Landscapes: Implications for Health and Livelihoods Kenneth R. Young Section II: Empirical Approaches to Injury and Infectious Disease Chapter 5: Buruli Ulcer Disease: The Unknown Environmental and Social Ecology of a Bacterial Pathogen Jiaguo Qi, Lindsay P. Campbell, Jenni van Ravensway, Andrew O. Finley, Richard W. Merritt, and M. Eric Benbow Chapter 6: The Ecology of Injuries in Matlab, Bangladesh Elisabeth D. Root and Michael Emch Chapter 7: Human Settlement, Environmental Change, and Frontier Malaria in the Brazilian Amazon Marcia C. Castro and Burton H. Singer Section III: Disease Histories, the State, and [Mis]Management Chapter 8: Vaccines, Fertility, and Power: The Political Ecology of Indigenous Health and Well-Being in Lowland Latin America Kendra McSweeney and Zoe Pearson Chapter 9: Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis: Eradication, Control, and Coexistence in Africa Paul F. McCord, Joseph P. Messina, & Carolyn A. Fahey Chapter 10: Geographies of HIV and Marginalization: A Case Study of HIV/AIDS Risk among Mayan Communities in Western Belize Cynthia Pope Chapter 11: The Mosquito State: How Technology, Capital and State Practice Mediate the Ecologies of Public Health Paul Robbins and Jacob C. Miller Section IV: Health Vulnerabilities Chapter 12: Exposure to Heat Stress in Urban Environments Olga Wilhelmi, Alex de Sherbinin, and Mary Hayden Chapter 13: Power, Race, and the Neglect of Science: The HIV Epidemics in Sub-Saharan Africa Eileen Stillwaggon and Larry Sawers Chapter 14: Disease as Shock, HIV/AIDS as Experience: Coupling Social and Ecological Responses in Sub-Saharan Africa Brian King Chapter 15: Futures for Ecologies and Politics of Health Brian King and Kelley A. Crews

Exploring the Influence of Smallholders' Perceptions Regarding Water Availability on Crop Choice and Water Allocation Through Socio‐Hydrological Modeling

While it is known that farmers adopt different decision-making behaviors to cope with stresses, it remains challenging to capture this diversity in formal model frameworks that are used to advance theory and inform policy. Guided by cognitive theory and the theory of bounded rationality, this research develops a novel, socio-hydrological model framework that can explore how a farmer’s perception of water availability impacts crop choice and water allocation. The model is informed by a rich empirical data set at the household level collected during 2013 in Kenya’s Upper Ewaso Ng’iro basin that shows that the crop type cultivated is correlated with water availability. The model is able to simulate this pattern and shows that near-optimal or ‘‘satisficing’’ crop patterns can emerge also when farmers were to make use of simple decision rules and have diverse perceptions on water availability. By focusing on farmer decision making it also captures the rebound effect, i.e., as additional water becomes available through the improvement of crop efficiencies it will be reallocated on the farm instead of flowing downstream, as a farmer will adjust his (her) water allocation and crop pattern to the new water conditions. This study is valuable as it is consistent with the theory of bounded rationality, and thus offers an alternative, descriptive model in addition to normative models. The framework can be used to understand the potential impact of climate change on the socio-hydrological system, to simulate and test various assumptions regarding farmer behavior and to evaluate policy interventions.

Frontiers in socio-environmental research: components, connections, scale, and context

The complex and interdisciplinary nature of socio-environmental (SE) problems has led to numerous efforts to develop organizing frameworks to capture the structural and functional elements of SE systems. We evaluate six leading SE frameworks, i.e., human ecosystem framework, resilience, integrated assessment of ecosystem services, vulnerability framework, coupled human-natural systems, and social-ecological systems framework, with the dual goals of (1) investigating the theoretical core of SE systems research emerging across diverse frameworks and (2) highlighting the gaps and research frontiers brought to the fore by a comparative evaluation. The discussion of the emergent theoretical core is centered on four shared structuring elements of SE systems: components, connections, scale, and context. Cross-cutting research frontiers include: moving beyond singular case studies and small-n studies to meta-analytic comparative work on outcomes in related SE systems; combining descriptive and data-driven modeling approaches to SE systems analysis; and promoting the evolution and refinement of frameworks through empirical application and testing, and interframework learning.