Livelihood change,farming, and managing flood risk in the Lerma Valley,Mexico |
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| Authors: | Hallie Eakin Kirsten Appendini |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060, USA;(2) Centro de Estudios Económicos, Colegio de México, Mexico, DF, 10740, Mexico |
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| Abstract: | In face of rising flood losses globally, the approach of “living with floods,” rather than relying on structural measures
for flood control and prevention, is acquiring greater resonance in diverse socioeconomic contexts. In the Lerma Valley in
the state of Mexico, rapid industrialization, population growth, and the declining value of agricultural products are driving
livelihood and land use change, exposing increasing numbers of people to flooding. However, data collected in two case studies
of farm communities affected by flooding in 2003 illustrate that the concept of flood as agricultural “hazard” has been relatively
recently constructed through public intervention in river management and disaster compensation. While farming still represents
subsistence value to rural households, increasingly rural communities are relying on non-farm income and alternative livelihood
strategies. In this context, defining flooding in rural areas as a private hazard for which individuals are entitled to public
protection may be counterproductive. A different approach, in which farmers’ long acceptance of periodic flooding is combined
with valuing agricultural land for ecoservices, may enable a more sustainable future for the region’s population.
Hallie Eakin
received her doctorate in Geography and Regional Development from the University of Arizona in 2002. She is currently an assistant
professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. As a postdoctoral researcher at the Center of Atmospheric Sciences
of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, she continued to work on issues related to economic globalization,
agricultural change, and rural vulnerability to climate in the context of several comparative international projects involving
case studies in Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, and Honduras. Her articles on this research have been published in World Development, the Journal of Environment and Development, Climatic Change, Global Environmental Change and Physical Geography. Her book Weathering Risk in Rural Mexico, based on her research on agricultural adaptation to neoliberal reforms and climatic variability in central Mexico, was released
by the University of Arizona Press in 2006.
Kirsten Appendini
has a doctorate in Agricultural Economics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She currently is a researcher
and professor on the faculty of the Center for Economic Studies (Centro de Estudios Económicos) at the Colegio de México in
Mexico City. She has published widely on issues of agrarian change, rural poverty, food security, and food policy in Mexico.
Her book on Mexican maize policy, De la milpa a los tortibonos: La restructración de la política alimentaria en México (Colmex 2001) is now on its second edition. She has also served as a consultant to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization
and several bilateral development agencies. |
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| Keywords: | Vulnerability Flood Livelihoods Agriculture Mexico |
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