Assessment of vegetation productivity on rangelands is needed to assist in timely decision making with regard to management of the livestock enterprise as well as to protect the natural resource. Characterization of the vegetation resource over large landscapes can be time consuming, expensive and almost impossible to do on a near real-time basis. The overarching goal of this study was to examine available technologies for implementing near real-time systems to monitor forage biomass available to livestock on a given landscape. The primary objectives were to examine the ability of the Climate Prediction Center Morphing Product (CMORPH) and Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) rainfall products to detect and estimate rainfall at semi-arid sites in West Texas, to verify the ability of a simulation model (PHYGROW) to predict herbaceous biomass at selected sites (patches) in a semi-arid landscape using NEXRAD rainfall, and to examine the feasibility of using cokriging for integrating simulation model output and satellite greenness imagery (NDVI) for producing landscape maps of forage biomass in Mongolia’s Gobi region. The comparison of the NEXRAD and CMORPH rainfall products to gage collected rainfall revealed that NEXRAD outperformed the CMORPH rainfall with lower estimation bias, lower variability, and higher estimation efficiency. When NEXRAD was used as a driving variable in PHYGROW simulations that were calibrated using gage measured rainfall, model performance for estimating forage biomass was generally poor when compared to biomass measurements at the sites. However, when model simulations were calibrated using NEXRAD rainfall, performance in estimating biomass was substantially better. A suggested reason for the improved performance was that calibration with NEXRAD adjusted the model for the general over or underestimation of rainfall by the NEXRAD product. In the Gobi region of Mongolia, the PHYGROW model performed well in predicting forage biomass except for overestimations in the Forest Steppe zone. Cross-validation revealed that cokriging of PHYGROW output with NDVI as a covariate performed well during the majority of the growing season. Cokriging of simulation model output and NDVI appears to hold promise for producing landscape maps of forage biomass as part of near real-time forage monitoring systems.

Thesis--Bonn. / Includes texts in romanized Tibetan and Mongolian. Includes bibliographical references (p. 382-394).

Master's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

Master's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

This dissertation configures winter disasters in Mongolia as a context for examining the "politics of responsibility" in a post-socialist nation. Winter disasters in Mongolia, called zud, are complex events in which unfavorable environmental, climatic, and weather conditions—such as sparse pasture, deep snow, ice, and extreme cold—combine to produce high winter livestock mortality, thus threatening rural livelihoods. Observed and projected climate change raises concerns that zud will increase in frequency and severity. Moreover, social and economic transitions in Mongolia since the end of Socialism have left herders highly exposed to shocks. A zud in the winter of 2009-2010 was especially alarming, being the biggest disaster since 1944, killing almost one quarter of Mongolia's livestock. This event was a testament not only to the destructive power of combined meteorological and environmental factors, but also to persistent vulnerability in rural Mongolia. Focusing on the politics of responsibility surrounding disasters such as zud, this dissertation examines popular discourses of herders as "lazy" and "irresponsible." These discourses arise from "neoliberal" ideologies in post-socialist Mongolia, and from certain values and institutions tied to Mongolia's socialist past. Some foreigners and urban Mongolians speculate that Socialism made herders dependent on state assistance, and now they just need to learn how to take care of themselves. Such assumptions have real impacts, as they influence development program design and policy. Socialism has indeed influenced the ways that Mongolians perceive risk and allocate responsibility in the face of zud. However, the effect has not been to make herders "lazy" and apathetic in the face of increasing risk, but rather the opposite. Socialism fostered strong values concerning work ethic, discipline, and agency. The research incorporated participant observation with herders at a site in the Gobi Desert and comparative research across five sites in Mongolia to record herders' complex strategies for managing risk. Interviews and archival research were used to examine Mongolians' changing attitudes toward risk.

A sustainable global program to reduce mercury use in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) will require the demonstration of credible, continuous progress to secure political support and financing, and ultimately achieve success. Focused progress measurement has been lacking to date for ASGM at the global level. This research analyses information on appropriate options to measure mercury reduction progress in ASGM. Research methods included a case study of Mongolia, supplemented with information analyzed from semi-structured interviews related to ASGM and other applicable evaluation approaches. The study concludes by proposing the development of a framework approach for measuring progress and by offering guiding principles and recommendations. Recommendations for the framework approach include: on-going and enhanced support to an information database; simplified evaluation metrics for the ASGM Partnership; tracking the level of political commitment of national governments as an indicator of progress; and promoting common reporting metrics across global programming.

In this thesis, we approach the issue of democratic transition from the subjective perspective of the authoritarian leader. By identifying successful cases of democratic transition in the last two decades, we enter a detailed analysis on the authoritarian regimes' incentive towards stepping down from leadership and pushing for democratic reform domestically.

abstract: Mongolian overtone singing (höömii) and Mongolian wrestling songs (tsols) are vocal styles that evoke physical and mental strength in the vocalist through the accessing of nature. The phrase “höömii-tsol-thinking computer” conveys my end-goal while composing, performing, and researching for my original composition strong.mng. I wanted to create a work in which the computer would be informed by the performance methods and philosophies employed during Mongolian höömii and tsols. Strong.mng is a 25-minute production for dancer, live digital illustrator, and overtone singer with a laptop computer serving as both a fixed and interactive responsive musical instrument. The music draws upon themes from höömii and tsols through the lens of virtual fieldwork, which was the research method I used to inform strong.mng. Through the composing and performing of strong.mng, I arrived at the following three-part hypothesis: firstly, the development of a robust symbiotic relationship between höömii, tsols, and today’s electronic music technology may transform the technological devices used into agents of deep ecology and bodily interconnectedness. Secondly, this transformation may metamorphose the performer into a more courageous being who is strengthened both physically and mentally by the Mongolian belief that, when performing höömii and tsols, the musician is drawn into kinship with nature. Lastly, I believe some computer music is restrained in its potential by techno-somatic discreteness as well as anthropocentrism, and that applying philosophies from höömii and tsols can help move computer music more towards a physically embodying means of sonification; one that is also akin with the natural world. / Dissertation/Thesis / This document provides links to audio and video of the dissertation composition. / Doctoral Dissertation Composition 2016

This dissertation studies the nexus of empire, environment, and market that defined Qing China in 1750-1850, when unprecedented commercial expansion and a rush for natural resources – including furs, pharmaceuticals, and precious minerals – transformed the ecology of China and its borderlands. That boom, no less than today’s, had profound institutional, ideological, and environmental causes and consequences. Nature itself was redefined. In this thesis, I show that it was the activism, not the atavism, of early modern empire that produced “nature.” Wilderness as such was not a state of nature: it reflected the nature of the state. Imperial efforts to elaborate and preserve “pure” ethnic homelands during the boom were at the center of this process. Using archival materials from Northeast China and Mongolia as case studies, the dissertation reassesses the view that homesteaders transformed China’s frontiers from wilderness to breadbasket after 1850. I argue instead that, like the Russian East and American West, the Qing empire’s North was never a “primitive wilderness” – it only seemed so to late 19th century observers. Manchuria and Mongolia, in fact, had served local and global markets. The boom years of the 1700s in particular witnessed a surge in poaching, commercial licensing, and violent “purification” campaigns to restore the environment, stem migration, and promote “traditional” land-use patterns. Results were mixed; conservation succeeded in some territories, while others suffered dramatic environmental change: emptied of fur-bearing animals, stripped of wild pharmaceuticals, left bare around abandoned worker camps. Beginning with changes in material culture in the metropole, the dissertation follows the commodity chain to production sites in the frontier, providing a fresh look at the politics of resource production and nature protection in the Qing empire. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

Approximately 200 people, mostly Dukhas of Tuvan ancestry, live nomadically with reindeer, horses, and dogs as ‘Tsaatans’ in the taiga of northern Mongolia. How do they effectively realize their livelihoods? Does qualifying corporeal manners, or bearings, in which livelihood practices are performed in the moments of actualization offer insight into ways in which longer-term decision-making processes like nomadic settlement and livestock management are embodied? Informed by a phenomenological approach in anthropology during nearly four months of cooperative co-habitation with Tsaatan mentors, I argue that Tsaatans effectively realize livelihood practices as they cheerfully embody poised improvisation and acrobatics in both skillful discernment and movement. Simultaneously anticipating and performing diverse tasks in playful cooperation with friends, family and other animals along nomadic lifestyles in a wilderness habitat involves persistent, sensory-rich, versatile manipulation of environmental materials, as well as extensive geographic knowledge and frequent experiences of risk in remote, rugged terrain and powerful meteorological conditions impossible to completely avoid. These lifestyles catalyze the development of quick-witted and materially sensitive resilience with which people are capable of corresponding with beings, materials, and situations, and thereby of continuing to develop ancestral traditions of reindeer husbandry in a rapidly changing social, economic, technological and geo-political context.