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Warner College of Natural Resources

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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/195522
These digital collections include the materials from the Mongolia Project and datasets from the Warner College of Natural Resources.

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Browsing Warner College of Natural Resources by Subject "biodiversity"

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    Land degradation assessment in Gobi-Altai Province
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015-06) Vova, Oyudari, author; Kappas, Martin, author; Renchin, Tsolmon, author; Degener, Jan, author; Nutag Action and Research Institute, publisher
    Remote Sensing and GIS analyses were embedded to monitor interactions and relationships between land use and land cover changes in the regional ecological space of Gobi-Altai province (Western part of Mongolia). In the last 76 years, Mongolia has experienced a combination of societal and governance system changes in transitioning from the feudal system to socialism and then from the socialist system with centrally planned economy to market. Each of these resulted in changes natural resources use throughout the country. Using GIS processing of data such as climate data (precipitation, air temperature) and vegetation, socio-economic data (livestock numbers, population density) were analyzed. We focused on developing a modeling approach for monitoring land degradation using GIS and Remote Sensing tools by merging climate and quantitative socio-economic data. The Modified Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (MSAVI) from SPOT/VEGETATION was used to define vegetation cover change for the period from 2000 to 2013. GIS conditional functions were applied for mapping and analyzing climate and socio-economic driving factors, both of which affect land degradation. Conditional functions such as MAP-Algebra from ArcGIS were developed using ground truth data and data from National Administrative Department of Statistics. Remote sensing data were useful diagnostic tools for providing gross impressions on broad-scale spatial heterogeneity, to assist in land degradation monitoring. This paper defines that study area is affected by land degradation caused by climate and socio economic impacts.
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    Resilience, values and ecosystem services: innovations in rangeland governance
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015-06) Upton, Caroline, author; Dulmaa, D., author; Nyamaa, N., author; Nutag Action and Research Institute, publisher
    Mongolia's socio-ecological rangeland systems face a number of critical, contemporary challenges. Climatic change, persistent poverty and growing land use conflicts, especially around mining, pose complex problems both for herders and policy-makers. Furthermore, there is renewed emphasis on meeting Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Aichi targets, following the publication of Mongolia's 5th National CBD report in March 2014, and the development of a new National Biodiversity Strategic Action Plan. (E)valuation of the contributions of rangeland ecosystem services (ES) to biodiversity and livelihoods/wellbeing are highlighted as priorities for future planning therein. ES thinking, valuation and commodification are becoming increasingly influential in other contemporary policy initiatives, not least through the development of the national REDD+ roadmap, Business and Biodiversity offset programmes and Government commitments to the ‘Green Economy'. Nonetheless critical questions remain about the ES paradigm itself, values/ valuation of ES and how these may be enacted and supported through policy. Here we report on a three year Darwin-Initiative funded project, which aimed to ‘generate policy and practice relevant knowledge of values of ecosystem services (ES) in Mongolia, and test the efficacy of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes, in order to enhance biodiversity and livelihoods'. Aims were realised through i) participatory mapping and analysis of ES, including cultural ES, with 300 herder households across four case study sites, and the development of innovative methods for non-economic valuation; ii) co-development and implementation of a novel rangeland payment for ES (PES) scheme at the four sites, through the Plan Vivo standard; iii) analysis of the impacts ES and of the PES scheme on biodiversity and livelihoods. Methods used included deliberative valuation approaches, mapping, ranking and choice modelling to examine group and individual values and trade-offs between ES across ecologically contrasting areas. We also applied the SOLVES (Social Values of ES) GIS model to highlight spatial, place-specific dimensions of ES values, as part of a series of wider biodiversity, livelihoods and ES assessments. Results highlight spatial and temporal diversities in ES values, importance of cultural ES for wellbeing, and the potential of carefully designed PES schemes to contribute to more resilient socio-ecological rangeland systems in the future.