Reading the Weather: Climate Risk Adaptation in Mongolia

Abstract

This article investigates the underlying forces that have led to the disastrous impact of recent extreme climate events in Mongolia and explores strategies to better deal with such events. In-depth field research was carried out following the 2010 extreme winter known as dzud making use of a combination of participatory research techniques, individual and focus group interviews, and surveys. The harsh winter of 2010 was one of the worst of its kind resulting in the death of eight and a half million livestock. In the last decade, this kind of extreme weather event has been on the rise. Herders have encountered serious difficulties in coping with them, preparing for them and mitigating their impact. Following the transition from a Soviet-dominated regime to democracy and a free market, pastoral livelihoods have become much more exposed to three interrelated forces: climate change and weather dynamics, natural resource degradation, in particular of grasslands and water, and rapid societal change. Co-management of natural resources is a form of collective adaptive management that reduces risks related to climate and societal change. Co-management could benefit from the timely delivery of improved weather forecasting, in particular on a local level. The scaling-out of co-management would benefit from stronger government support in terms of legal protection of new organisational forms, technical and financial support, and improved rural services. The results of this research deepen our understanding of the complexity of the forces that have made herding much riskier. It also opens a window to the benefits of co-management which the government of Mongolia aims to scale out nationally as a means to deal with climate change and related risks.