Water resources development and its impact on rural livelihood in northern Thailand

This book presents results of a research program which is characterized by i) new areas in research methodology of rural development, ii) focusing on empirical problems in natural resources development, especially water resources, and the relation to living standard of rural people and iii) impact assessment of problem solving strategies as well as of natural (e. g. disaster) strategies on the future livelihood of rural people with combined family-society and socio-economic-ecological simulation models. In the methodological approach, it combines micro level family view with the society’s view at rural regional level by integrating farm management and socioeconomic methods with remote sensing and geographical information systems. Special emphasis is not only given to collection and integration of data of different types, e. g. farmers views in interviews and natural science data as facts from satellite images, but also to the mathematical linkage between family decision models and spatial explicit modeling for simulating the future of the combined interests of individual families and the society at regional level. The empirical analyses centers around the socioeconomic development of different ethnic groups having different access to natural resources, to capital for investment into modern farm production systems, to markets as well as variations in ownership rights. The driving forces behind settlements in new areas (often forests) and the consequences on land use, market supply and living standard of people are analyzed and used for evaluating future strategies The impact of future problem-solving strategies in the farming business and regional water resources development have been simulated and evaluated based on both the individual families’ and the society’ objectives using family models and explicit spatial modeling. Furthermore, future developments which are not or to a lesser degree based on individual decision-making, such as increasing land scarcity, changing environmental conditions and climatic changes related to water availability have been forecasted and allow showing limited and even disaster developments in the future. This provides potentials of decision-making in research, extension and policy.