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Antibiotic effectiveness, forests, and climate stability are three of the most endangered public and common goods of the twenty-first century. All three are threatened by individuals ignoring the negative consequences of their actions on society: spreading antibiotic resistance, increasing forest degradation, and accelerating climate change. All these effects are likely to have long-lasting impacts on global health and economic development. This dissertation seeks to understand these human–environment interactions better while evaluating policies promoting sustainable behaviors or improving economic resilience. The first chapter considers the trade-off in prescribing antibiotics: they cure bacterial infections, but they spur antibiotic resistance. I estimate two essential parameters to calibrate any model of antibiotic resistance: the causal impact of prescriptions on antibiotic resistance and the elasticity of demand for an antibiotic. After developing and calibrating a dynamic bio-economic model of the issue, I show that it can be welfare-improving to increase out-of-pocket expenditure on antibiotics used to tackle spreading infections. The second chapter calculates the geographical distribution of people at risk of falling into poverty in the aftermath of droughts and floods in Malawi. Its methods can be expanded to identify the beneficiaries of scalable social safety nets or ex-ante climate insurance. Such programs would increase the resilience of the poor to climate change. The third chapter investigates the potential double dividend of internal migration in terms of poverty alleviation and forest regeneration in Central India. It relies on an innovative index of forest degradation created from high-resolution remote sensing imagery and unique data on internal migration and forest pressure based on a survey of 5,000 households.

This thesis seeks to explore and examine the application and use of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) in the management of drought through a case study of Msinga village communities in the northern parts of KwaZulu-Natal Province, paying specific attention to droughts that have been recorded and that prevail in the area. Government's policy aimed at mitigating and the effect of drought on communities and its effectiveness is examined as well. The question is whether government policy measures supplement rural communities' drought management strategies. The findings demonstrated that droughts are endemic in the study area and that drought-management strategies are as intrinsic to local livelihood systems as are seasonal-adjustment strategies. The findings also indicated that communities in Msinga have knowledge of drought management. However, this knowledge contributes very little to the management of drought. The findings also demonstrated that there is poor capacity in government to deal with disasters and this has serious repercussions for poor rural communities in Msinga. Disaster management requires disaster reduction, planning, and capacity to reduce the losses borne by impoverished households. This process will be more effective if there is efficient mobilization of resources, rapid responses, and a long-term strategy to prevent drought and reduce the risks of vulnerable groups, rather than transferring risks. The new legislation, the Disaster Management Act of 2002, should ensure that any form of financial and bureaucratic bottlenecks are eliminated so that assistance reaches people more quickly and is based on developing a long-term programme targeting the reduction of risks from the drought prevailing in Msinga. It is also important that NGOs in the area are empowered and involved in disaster management and are able to play their full role. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.