Agrarian and Environmental Changes in Thailand: Linkages between Climate-Related Risks, Livelihood and Migration

25.10.2017: Vortrag Sopon NARUCHAIKUSOL

Mittwoch, 25. Oktober 2017, 16:30 Uhr

Institut für Geographie und Regionalforschung

Universität Wien, Universitätsstr. 7/5, 1010 Wien, Konferenzraum 

 

The impact of changing a rainfall variability such as delaying rain, longer dry spell, and periodic rain appears to be becoming more important as a result of climate change in Thailand. Alongside climate change, households were also faced with socio-economic and development challenges such as agriculture price punctuation, changing labor structures, land use change, and resources degradation. This research investigates to a rural household’s livelihood vulnerability and resilience from two difference social and livelihood settings in the Northern and Northeastern Thailand. It aims to illustrate the impact and consequences of multiple stressors and shocks. Furthermore, it seeks to understand the challenge of rural households to cope, adapt and transform to those changes.

The result shows that income diversification, migration opportunity, asset accumulation, and land ownership are important factors contributing to a household resilience. A household with a larger landholding became secure from the adverse impact of socio-economic, development, and climate change. Household can manage their decision to diversify crop varieties, reliable access to water resources, and shift to a better or safer area. Migration and remittance also play an important role to diversify income for a household consumption and crop investment. Migration is enabling a household capacity to accumulate their assets and diversification of income sources. A remittance does not only play an important role for a daily expense, children education, investment and payback a debt. But it contributed to an asset accumulation, particularly a land that household can manage to cope and/or adapt to environmental changes.

Sopon Naruchaikusol hold Master of Science in Resources Management (interdisciplinary graduated program) from Kasetsart University in Thailand, with a focus on participatory research and valuation method. He worked with IUCN-The World Conservation Union on forest resources management and wetlands management in the lower Mekong River Basin (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) as outreach officer. Before joining the department of Geography, University of Bonn, he worked as research associate with Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and project consultant with the Asia Foundation (TAF), emphasized on vulnerability assessment, disaster risk management and early warning system in Tsunami affected areas, climate change adaptation, social learning, climate & economics model, and river basin management. He also has extensive experiences in research fieldwork and policy research, particularly in Thailand. His PhD research focuses on the migration, vulnerability and resilience from climate-related hazards and environmental changes in Thailand.