Abe Initiative Seminar
Friday May 18, 2018, 16:30-18:00, E020, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University
Title: Climate variability, Adaptation and Rural/Urban Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa
Speaker: Prof. Tom Evans
School of Geography and Development, University of Arizona
Abstract: Smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa are dramatically affected by climate variability with critical implications for both rural and urban livelihoods. This talk will present research investigating adaptation to climate variability in Kenya and Zambia under different types of agroecosystems (rainfed vs. irrigated) including methods to monitor intra-annual environmental dynamics coupled with high-frequency data obtained from farmers via mobile phones. This tight coupling between social and environmental data presents new opportunities to understand how farmers detect environmental conditions and their efforts to practice adaptive management. Rural agricultural production also has implications for urban food security and this presentation will discuss the applicability of rural food security metrics for the investigation of food security in urban environments and the implications of rural-urban teleconnections for urban households.
Tom Evans is a professor in the School of Geography and Development at University of Arizona (USA). His work focuses on climate impacts and adaptation in smallholder agroecosystems and urban food systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. Recent projects have investigated the spatial and temporal characteristics of drought events in Zambia and Kenya and the mechanisms utilized by farmers in rainfed and irrigated systems to mitigate those impacts. This work involves investigation of household level decision-making dynamics, institutional analysis/environmental governance, and integration of social-environmental data. Newer work is investigating the teleconnections between rural food production and urban food security through analysis of urban food systems.
Contact Person: Chieko Umetsu, E-mail: umetsu.chieko.5e@kyoto-u.ac.jp
