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Dynamics of Social–Ecological Systems: The Case of Farmers’ Food Security in the Semi-arid Tropics

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Social-Ecological Systems in Transition

Part of the book series: Global Environmental Studies ((GENVST))

Abstract

Resilience is defined as “the capacity of a system to experience shocks while retaining essentially the same function, structure, feedbacks, and therefore identity (Walker et al. (2004) Ecol Soc 9(2):5). Although resilience has been defined and analyzed in ecological as well as social-ecological terms, their method of analysis is still under development. Recently, the concept of resilience has been directly applied to regional development and food security issues where people’s livelihoods rely heavily on the natural resource base. Resilience of social-ecological system (SES) is considered an important component for achieving sustainability.

Within Semi-Arid Tropical Sub-Saharan Africa, communities’ livelihoods depend critically on fragile and poorly endowed natural resources, and poverty and environmental degradation are widespread. People in these regions depend largely on rain-fed agriculture, and their livelihoods are vulnerable to environmental variability. Environmental resources such as vegetation and soil are also vulnerable to human activities. To surmount these environmental challenges, human society and ecosystems must have a capacity to recover quickly from environmental shock.

We argue that, in order to operationalize resilience, it is important for us to consider resilience in the context of human security of rural households in semi-arid tropics (SAT) regions. We consider resilience to environmental variability, such as drought, flooding, and social changes. We consider resilience of food supply and consumption, health status, agricultural production, and livelihoods. Lastly, we consider resilience for protecting human security, i.e., survival, livelihoods, and dignity. The purpose of the chapter is to show our empirical evidence from Zambia and the dynamics of farmers’ livelihoods in response to various shocks, discuss whether threshold can be defined in the context of food security in social-ecological system, and, lastly, investigate the role of institutions to build adaptive capacity of the communities.

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Acknowledgements

This is a contribution from the Social-Ecological Resilience Project (E-04, Vulnerability and Resilience of Social–Ecological Systems), administered by the RIHN, and JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) Program No. 23310027. We acknowledge Mr. Harutaka Kubo, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Hokkaido University, for his excellent assistance with the BMI calculations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan

    Chieko Umetsu, Thamana Lekprichakul, Yudai Ishimoto & Hidetoshi Miyazaki

  2. Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan

    Chieko Umetsu

  3. Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan

    Takeshi Sakurai

  4. Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

    Taro Yamauchi

Authors
  1. Chieko Umetsu
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  2. Thamana Lekprichakul
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  3. Takeshi Sakurai
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  4. Taro Yamauchi
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  5. Yudai Ishimoto
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  6. Hidetoshi Miyazaki
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chieko Umetsu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Otsu, Shiga, Japan

    Shoko Sakai

  2. Graduate School of Fisheries Science and Environmental Studies, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Nagasaki, Japan

    Chieko Umetsu

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Umetsu, C., Lekprichakul, T., Sakurai, T., Yamauchi, T., Ishimoto, Y., Miyazaki, H. (2014). Dynamics of Social–Ecological Systems: The Case of Farmers’ Food Security in the Semi-arid Tropics. In: Sakai, S., Umetsu, C. (eds) Social-Ecological Systems in Transition. Global Environmental Studies. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54910-9_9

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