How do herders respond to drought? : A long-distant movement of people and livestock in Mongolia Effect of drought on herders’ movement in Mongolian rangeland
Coping with droughts are one of the most important issues in arid and semi-arid
regions. Mongolia, where are located in central Asia, are concerned the increase of
droughts in the future (IPCC 2014). Mongolia has long history of livestock grazing.
Herders have developed the mobile grazing systems to use spatiotemporal variable
vegetation. Especially, they often take a rapid and long-distant movement to avoid
drought condition (“otor” in Mongolia). The movement is a main adaptation measure
to droughts for herders (Middleton et al. 2015), and it would be a key to examine the
effect of climate change on society and ecosystems in Mongolia. However there are
few knowledge about the long-distant movement of herders and livestock. For
example we do not know how climatic, ecological and economic condition affect
herders’ long-distant movement. To discuss the effect of drought on Mongolian
rangeland, we investigated the pattern of herders’ long-distant movement.
Firstly, in order to examine the effect of economic condition on a long-distant
movement, we carried out interview to local herders (n=55) in Mandalgobi, Mongolia.
We asked them about their owned livestock number, mobile distance and resource
utilization during a drought. To classify pastoralists based on their herding strategy,
we performed hierarchical clustering analysis that based on interview data. Clustering
analysis categorized herders into two groups; large herds and small herds. We
compared mobile distances of two groups, and result showed herders with large herds
tend to take a long-distant movement during a drought (Kakinuma et al. 2014).
Secondly, to examine relationship between climatic variability and herders’ longdistant
movement, we asked the Ministry of Industry and Agriculture in Mongolia
about contracts among prefectures. The contract is to receive herders who came from
other prefectures, and supports herders’ long-distant movement. Data showed that
herders in high variable precipitation areas (southern area) take a long-distant
movement more frequency than herders in low variable precipitation areas (northern
area) during 2009-2014. Finally, we investigated herders’ population distribution by
using statistical data of herders’ household that are provided by statistical office of
Mongolia. Then we asked some prefectures about the number of household that came
from other prefectures during 2009-2014. Results showed that herders in southern,
western areas tend to move to northern, eastern areas where have much vegetation,
and a good access to capital. The result suggested that not only urbanization but also
a few vegetation may cause a permanent long-distant movement of herders.
Our results suggested that herders’ long-distant movement would be affected by their
economic conditions, precipitation variability and vegetation conditions. Especially,
herders in southern, western areas tend to move to northern, eastern areas. Therefore
climate changes (i.e. increase of drought frequency) would serve incentive to herders’
long-distant movement, and would affect a distribution of population in Mongolia
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