1. Ecological Calendars of the Pamir Mountains: Illustrating the Importance of Context‐Specificity for Food Security
- Author
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A. L. Ullmann, I. Haag, and U. Bulbulshoev
- Subjects
Global and Planetary Change ,Epidemiology ,Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law ,Pollution ,Waste Management and Disposal ,ddc ,Ecological Calendars and Anticipating the Anthropogenic Climate Crisis ,ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE ,Air/sea constituent fluxes ,Volcanic effects ,BIOGEOSCIENCES ,Climate dynamics ,Modeling ,COMPUTATIONAL GEOPHYSICS ,Numerical solutions ,CRYOSPHERE ,Avalanches ,Mass balance ,GEODESY AND GRAVITY ,Ocean monitoring with geodetic techniques ,Ocean/Earth/atmosphere/hydrosphere/cryosphere interactions ,Global change from geodesy ,GLOBAL CHANGE ,Regional climate change ,Abrupt/rapid climate change ,Climate variability ,Earth system modeling ,Impacts of global change ,Land/atmosphere interactions ,Oceans ,Sea level change ,Solid Earth ,Water cycles ,HYDROLOGY ,Climate impacts ,Hydrological cycles and budgets ,INFORMATICS ,MARINE GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS ,Gravity and isostasy ,ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES ,Climate change and variability ,Climatology ,General circulation ,Ocean/atmosphere interactions ,Regional modeling ,Theoretical modeling ,OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL ,Climate and interannual variability ,Numerical modeling ,NATURAL HAZARDS ,Sustainable development ,Community management ,Atmospheric ,Geological ,Oceanic ,Physical modeling ,Climate impact ,Risk ,Disaster risk analysis and assessment ,OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL ,Air/sea interactions ,Decadal ocean variability ,Ocean influence of Earth rotation ,Sea level: variations and mean ,Surface waves and tides ,Tsunamis and storm surges ,PALEOCEANOGRAPHY ,POLICY SCIENCES ,Benefit-cost analysis ,RADIO SCIENCE ,Radio oceanography ,SEISMOLOGY ,Earthquake ground motions and engineering seismology ,Volcano seismology ,VOLCANOLOGY ,Volcano/climate interactions ,Atmospheric effects ,Volcano monitoring ,Effusive volcanism ,Mud volcanism ,Explosive volcanism ,Volcanic hazards and risks ,GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION ,Asia ,Research Article ,transdisciplinary research ,Indigenous knowledge ,praxis ,climate adaptation ,human ecology ,iconographic communication [Rhythms of the Earth] ,Water Science and Technology - Abstract
Communities in the Pamir Mountains of Central Asia are among the most vulnerable to climate change due to their geographic location and subsistence-based livelihoods. Historically, ecological calendars supported their agropastoral lifestyles which provided anticipatory capacity to seasonal changes. Due to decades of Soviet colonization and socioecological transformations, knowledge of these ecological calendars fell into disuse. In 2016, Savnob and Roshorv, two villages in the Bartang Valley of Tajikistan, began the revitalization of these calendars using a participatory action research process through knowledge co-generation. We undertook a comparative analysis to investigate the importance of context-specificity to ensure food security and reduce their vulnerability to climate change. A preliminary analysis of the temperature regime and local language terms, relating to the positioning and quality of land, framed our methods-of-analysis. We compared the villagers' ecological calendars by focusing on indicator species, potentially threatening weather events, land-use, livelihood activities, and the role of the vernal equinox. Despite their close geographic proximity, context-specificity determined by distinct microecologies influences the timing and practice of these communities' livelihood activities. These villages have different dependencies on biotic and abiotic events, crops, and land-use; all of which affect food security and survival. These differences contributed to mutual support between the two villages, increased the availability of food, and thereby, lowered their vulnerability to climate change. As Savnob's and Roshorv's ecological calendars are updated with changing climate, they can once again enhance their anticipatory capacity while reducing their vulnerability.
- Published
- 2022