Changing crops in response to climate: Virtual Nang Rong, Thailand in an agent based simulation

The effects of extended climatic variability on agricultural land use were explored for the type of system found in villages of northeastern Thailand. An agent based model developed for the Nang Rong district was used to simulate land allotted to jasmine rice, heavy rice, cassava, and sugar cane. The land use choices in the model depended on likely economic outcomes, but included elements of bounded rationality in dependence on household demography. The socioeconomic dynamics are endogenous in the system, and climate changes were added as exogenous drivers. Villages changed their agricultural effort in many different ways. Most villages reduced the amount of land under cultivation, primarily with reduction in jasmine rice, but others did not. The variation in responses to climate change indicates potential sensitivity to initial conditions and path dependence for this type of system. The differences between our virtual villages and the real villages of the region indicate effects of bounded rationality and limits on model applications

Social and spatial networks: Kinship distance and dwelling unit proximity in rural Thailand

We address a long hypothesized relationship between the proximity of individuals' dwelling units and their kinship association. Better understanding this relationship is important because of its implications for contact and association among members of a society. In this paper, we use a unique dataset from Nang Rong, Thailand which contains dwelling unit locations (GPS) and saturated kinship networks of all individuals living in 51 agricultural villages. After presenting arguments for a relationship between individuals’ dwelling unit locations and their kinship relations as well as the particulars of our case study, we introduce the data and describe our analytic approach. We analyze how kinship - considered as both a system linking collections of individuals in an extended kinship network and as dyadic links between pairs of individuals -patterns the proximity of dwelling units in rural villages. The results show that in general, extended kin live closer to one another than do unrelated individuals. Further, the degree of relatedness between kin correlates with the distance between their dwelling units. Close kin are more likely to co-reside, a fact which drives much of the relationship between kinship relatedness and dwelling unit proximity within villages. There is nevertheless suggestive evidence of a relationship between kinship association and dwelling unit proximity among kin who do not live together

Mapping and modeling the urban landscape in Bangkok, Thailand: physical-spectral-spatial relations of population–environmental interactions

This research focuses on the application of remote sensing, geographic information systems, statistical modeling, and spatial analysis to examine the dynamics of urban land cover, urban structure, and population-environment interactions in Bangkok, Thailand, with an emphasis on rural-to-urban migration from rural Nang Rong District, Northeast Thailand to the primate city of Bangkok. The dissertation consists of four main sections: (1) development of remote sensing image classification and change-detection methods for characterizing imperviousness for Bangkok, Thailand from 1993-2002; (2) development of 3-D urban mapping methods, using high spatial resolution IKONOS satellite images, to assess high-rises and other urban structures; (3) assessment of urban spatial structure from 2-D and 3-D perspectives; and (4) an analysis of the spatial clustering of migrants from Nang Rong District in Bangkok and the neighborhood environments of migrants' locations. Techniques are developed to improve the accuracy of the neural network classification approach for the analysis of remote sensing data, with an emphasis on the spectral unmixing problem. The 3-D building heights are derived using the shadow information on the high-resolution IKONOS image. The results from the 2-D and 3-D mapping are further examined to assess urban structure and urban feature identification. This research contributes to image processing of remotely-sensed images and urban studies. The rural-urban migration process and migrants’ settlement patterns are examined using spatial statistics, GIS, and remote sensing perspectives. The results show that migrants’ spatial clustering in urban space is associated with the source village and a number of sociodemographic variables. In addition, the migrants’ neighborhood environments in urban setting are modeled using a set of geographic and socio-demographic variables, and the results are scale-dependent

Monetization: a theory and applications

Chapter 1 introduces the topic. In Chapter 2, I present a review of the theoretical work on monetization and money. This chapter identifies the classic schools of thought on what monetization is and combines these with recent interdisciplinary scholarship to produce a theory of monetization for the 21st Century. It is shown that this theory provides improved explanatory power and generates many more interesting avenues for further research than the current theories. The major contribution of this chapter is a new theory of monetization that builds on the work of classic sociology, economics, and anthropology. Chapter 3 extends the theoretical work of Chapter 2 to connect it with familiar sociological literatures describing exchange, social networks, and trust. It highlights the importance these factors for understanding monetization as institutional change. It compares this enhanced theoretical understanding to simpler economic models typically employed and demonstrates that the social network interpretation of monetization out-performs the simpler economic labor supply and demand explanation. Basic correlation analysis is used to support the empirical propositions, and a discussion of the unique challenges to studying monetization empirically is provided. The major conclusion of this chapter is that social network position is closely related to the degree of labor monetization among rural households in a transitional economy. Chapter 4 is unique in treating monetization as an outcome variable and exploring the basic demographic, economic, and agricultural factors that predict this transition in a transaction common to many world economies: the exchange of agricultural labor. It uses data from Nang Rong District, Thailand to demonstrate that many of these factors are related to agricultural participation and labor monetization in opposite ways, suggesting an antagonism between labor monetization and traditional agriculture. Utilizing the longitudinal character of the data, the greater degree of monetization observed at a later time period is shown to be a response to changes in the structural parameters of the model, while declining agricultural participation is better explained by the shifting composition of the population through common demographic processes like population aging. Chapter 5 summarizes the findings, draws connections, and suggests directions for future study

Demography and Social Network Differentiation

Nearly all societies in the world have completed or begun a demographic transition, but their experiences have varied in terms of timing, tempo and extent of mortality and fertility decline. I focus on understanding what implications such variation has for social interaction. Though prior literature has explored demographic contributions to opportunities for interaction between individuals of different ages, it has focused on social ties between very close kin (such as children and parents), particularly in the context of multi-generational co-residence. This paper extends this focus by considering broader kinship links in communities, which are important components of community integration. To do this, I use a simulation approach that combines the traditions of demographic micro-simulation and social network generation with techniques of agent-based modeling. Results are presented concerning how variations in demographic history manifest as differences in modern social networks. These are validated against a set of specific cases from Thailand

Household-Level Relationships between Out-Migration and Monetization of Rice Harvest Labor In Nang Rong District, Thailand

There is an ongoing paucity of attention from researchers to the consequences of migration for households in villages of origin. The relationship between migration and remittance behavior on the one hand and the monetization of rice harvest labor on the other are explored in the context of Nang Rong District, Northeast Thailand. Theoretical linkages between migration and use of paid labor are explored. Results demonstrate that the prevalence of wage labor use during the rice harvest doubled between 1994 and 2000 across the region, while reliance solely upon unpaid household labor fell substantially. Despite differences in growing conditions, macroeconomic conditions, household demographics and other phenomenon, a relationship between remittance behavior and use of paid labor was found in both time periods. Migration behavior by itself was related to paid labor use only when labor was scarce.Master of Art

Research on vulnerability to poverty : a village case study from Thailand

[no abstract

An application of Geographic Information System for supporting tourism development along the Southeast Asian East-West Economic Corridor

Der Southeast Asia (SEA) East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC) ist ein herausragender Landweg, der vier Länder umfasst: Myanmar, Thailand, Laos und Vietnam. Er wird von mehreren Korridoren gekreuzt und fungiert daher als Anschlussstelle und Verkehrskreuz in der SEA Region. Um die wirtschaftliche Expansion zu steigern und den Umsatz unter den EWEC Nationen zu fördern, wurde die Entwicklung des Tourismus auf dieser Strecke verstärkt. Der EWEC befindet sich in der potenziellen Peripherie-Region und durchquert mehrere Länder. Diese besitzen sehr malerische Werte aus natürlichen und historischen Ressourcen, traditionellen Kulturen und einem unverwechselbaren Lebensstil. Aber viele dieser Orte waren bisher kein vorrangiges Tourismusziel. Einigen von ihnen fehlt noch die nötige Infrastruktur, um Besucher anzuziehen. Diese Arbeit zielt primär auf die Evaluierung des touristischen Attraktivitätspotenzials entlang des EWEC mittels eines GIS-basiertem analytischen Hierarchieprozesses (AHP), Multi-Kriterien Evaluierung (MCE) und Netzwerk-Analyse. Darüber hinaus erweitert die Studie die früheren Ergebnisse um die einflussreichen Faktoren, die die möglichen Touristenattraktionen untersuchen. Die Bereiche, denen es an der nötigen Infrastruktur fehlt, vor allem in der Provinz Savannakhet, Laos, werden aufgezeigt und für den Ausbau neuer möglicher Standorte der öffentlichen Dienstleistungen und Investitionen der Tourismusindustrie unterstützt. Das GIS Analysetool für Location-Allokation kann dabei die Entwicklung vernachlässigter Sehenswürdigkeiten einschließlich der schwach entwickelten peripheren Regionen entlang des Korridors unterstützen. Schließlich wurden sechs Reiserouten-Modelle entwickelt für nationale und internationale Reisen in der EWEC Region: Fischgräten- Muster, Radius-Muster, Zielbereich-Schleife, Möbius-Schleife, Gabel-Reiseroute und komplexes Touring. Diese Modelle wurden im ArcGIS Network Analyst für die Suche nach praktischen optimalen Routen in Bezug auf Distanz und Zeit implementiert. Auf die 26 prioritären aus den ersten Ergebnissen gewonnenen Destinationen wurden die EWEC Reiseroute Modelle angewandt. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die GIS-basierten Netzwerk-Analyse ein potenzielles erstes Hilfsmittel für die Tourenplanung ist. Die gesamten Ergebnisse dieser Studie bieten einen Einblick in die derzeitige Situation im Tourismussektor des EWEC und unterstützen dessen Planung und Entwicklung in der ganzen EWEC-Region. Diese Strategien sind auch flexibel, um in anderen Regionen auf der ganzen Welt angewendet zu werden.The Southeast Asia (SEA) East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC) is an outstanding land route stretching across four countries; Myanmar, Thailand, Lao PDR and Vietnam. It is also intersected by several corridors and consequently supports interchange nodes and linkage of main hubs in the SEA region. To boost the economic expansion and increase revenue among these EWEC nations, the tourism development on this route has been raised. The EWEC is located in the potential periphery region and have highly scenic values composed of natural and historical resources, traditional cultures and distinctive lifestyles. However many of these sites have not been a priority destination. Some of them are still lack of tourism facility services and attractiveness in terms of potential evaluation to attract visitors. The present study aims firstly to evaluate tourist attractions’ potential along the EWEC region by applying GIS-based multiple models- analytic hierarchy process (AHP), multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) and network analysis. In addition, the study extends the previous results to investigate the influential factors affecting potential tourist attractions. Then, the areas lacking of facility services- mainly in the Savannakhet province, Lao PDR- are displayed and supported for expanding new possible locations of public services and investments of tourism industry. The GIS location-allocation analysis tool was used to support development of neglected tourism attractions including the weak peripheral areas throughout the main route. Finally, the six EWEC tourist itinerary models are developed - En-route pattern, Radius Destination, Destination Area Loop, Möbius Loop, Open Jaw Itinerary and Complex Touring- to accommodate domestic and international traveling in this region. These models are implemented in ArcGIS Network Analyst for finding practically optimal routes in terms of distance and time saving. The 26 prioritized tourist sites obtained from the first results are selected to run on the EWEC itinerary models. Our results show that the GIS-based network analysis is a potential tool to tourist initial travelling planning. The total outcomes of this study provide insights into the EWEC current situations of tourism sector and support tourism planning and development on the EWEC region as a whole. These strategies are also flexible to be applied in other regions around the world

Localizando geográficamente las redes personales

In the listserv REDES was carried on a personal network survey with the aim of exploring the value of combining both network and geographical data (through the latitude and longitude of each nominee). The survey was done with the aid of the Egonet software. The results of the experience show that this combination allows new insights in the data, specially the spatial distribution of social relationships and their associate exchanges.Con el objetivo de explorar las potencialidades de la combinación de datos procedentes de redes sociales e información geográfica, se llevo a cabo una encuesta de redes personales con la ayuda del programa Egonet entre miembros del listserv REDES. En esta encuesta se identifica la latitud y la longitud de las personas nominadas. Los resultados de la experiencia demuestran que esta combinación permite explorar un campo de extraordinario interés como es la distribución espacial de los tipos de relaciones sociales y los intercambios asociados

Social Networks in Ghana

In this chapter we examine social networks among farmers in a developing country. We use detailed data on economic activities and social interactions between people living in four study villages in Ghana. It is clear that economic development in this region is being shaped by the networks of information, capital and influence that permeate these communities. This chapter explores the determinants of these important economic networks. We first describe the patterns of information, capital, labor and land transaction connections that are apparent in these villages. We then discuss the interconnections between the various economic networks. We relate the functional economic networks to more fundamental social relationships between people in a reduced form analysis. Finally, we propose an equilibrium model of multi-dimensional network formation that can provide a foundation for further data collection and empirical research.Endogenous Networks, Informal Credit, Social Learning