Continuous and Discrete: Where They Have Met in Nang Rong, Thailand

Abstract

A major challenge facing the scientific community is to link people to the land so that social behavior can be studied meaningfully in relation to changes in land use and land cover types, landscape conditions, and associated ecosystem processes. One aspect of the challenge is that the linking must take place at appropriate spatial and temporal scales. Another aspect of the challenge is that social data are typically discrete, referring to point locations, whereas data on land cover and land use are typically continuous. In this paper, we examine the linking of people to the land through data transformations that move from the discrete to the continuous and from the continuous to the discrete, with particular reference to our research in Nang Rong, Thailand. We describe approaches used at the village level, which involve setting village territories, use of population distributions models, and integrating social survey data to describe land activities with satellite-based land cover classifications to describe land composition and spatial organization. These approaches are assessed relative to their underlying assumptions, their advantages and disadvantages, and their limitations. We also discuss our experience measuring links at a more micro level, between households and the plots they use. Although our discussion is with reference to a specific setting and site, many of the general points apply to other complex rural environments in which villages consist of clusters of dwelling units surrounded by agricultural lands, and in which households may farm multiple, non-contiguous parcels.