IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v82y2012icp33-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do ecosystem services influence household wealth in rural Mali?

Author

Listed:
  • Liebenow, Danielle King
  • Cohen, Matthew J.
  • Gumbricht, Thomas
  • Shepherd, Keith D.
  • Shepherd, Gemma

Abstract

The impact of ecosystem services on human livelihood is rarely demonstrated. We investigated whether ecosystem services influence household wealth in semi-arid rural Mali, where climate variability and soil degradation were expected to regulate subsistence production. Mean rainfall, mean rain use efficiency, and rain use efficiency trends (a land degradation proxy) over the last 25years were used to quantify ecosystem services. Asset wealth was measured in 2527 households from 65 villages spanning the range in ecosystem services. We evaluated effects on wealth, controlling for household size and demographics, ethnicity, village size, crop selection, and distance to open water and markets. While wealth variation was dominated by demographics, significant associations with ecosystem services were observed. Predicted household wealth increased significantly (20%) with rainfall. Effects of rain use efficiency mean and trends were also significant, but only when conditioned on rainfall. With lower rainfall, wealth increased with mean rain use efficiency (+33%) but decreased with rain use efficiency trend (−22%). With higher rainfall, however, wealth decreased with rain use efficiency (−57%) and increased markedly with rain use efficiency trend (+185%). While ecosystem services are clearly important, their effect on rural poverty is complex and potentially obscured by coping strategies that mitigate environmental limitations.

Suggested Citation

  • Liebenow, Danielle King & Cohen, Matthew J. & Gumbricht, Thomas & Shepherd, Keith D. & Shepherd, Gemma, 2012. "Do ecosystem services influence household wealth in rural Mali?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 33-44.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:82:y:2012:i:c:p:33-44
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.08.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800912003102
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.08.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ravallion, Martin, 1996. "Issues in Measuring and Modelling Poverty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1328-1343, September.
    2. Yamano, Takashi & Kijima, Yoko, 2010. "The associations of soil fertility and market access with household income: Evidence from rural Uganda," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 51-59, February.
    3. Sahn, David E. & Stifel, David C., 2000. "Poverty Comparisons Over Time and Across Countries in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(12), pages 2123-2155, December.
    4. R. Lal, 2009. "Soil degradation as a reason for inadequate human nutrition," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 1(1), pages 45-57, February.
    5. Angus Deaton & Christina Paxson, 1998. "Economies of Scale, Household Size, and the Demand for Food," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 897-930, October.
    6. Deon Filmer & Lant Pritchett, 2001. "Estimating Wealth Effects Without Expenditure Data—Or Tears: An Application To Educational Enrollments In States Of India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(1), pages 115-132, February.
    7. Swinton, Scott M. & Quiroz, Roberto, 2003. "Is Poverty to Blame for Soil, Pasture and Forest Degradation in Peru's Altiplano?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(11), pages 1903-1919, November.
    8. Bahamondes, Miguel, 2003. "Poverty-Environment Patterns in a Growing Economy: Farming Communities in Arid Central Chile, 1991-99," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(11), pages 1947-1957, November.
    9. Robyn von Maltzahn & Kevin Durrheim, 2008. "Is poverty multidimensional? A comparison of income and asset based measures in five Southern African countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 86(1), pages 149-162, March.
    10. Reardon, Thomas & Vosti, Stephen A., 1995. "Links between rural poverty and the environment in developing countries: Asset categories and investment poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(9), pages 1495-1506, September.
    11. Ravnborg, Helle Munk, 2003. "Poverty and Environmental Degradation in the Nicaraguan Hillsides," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(11), pages 1933-1946, November.
    12. Abdulai, Awudu & CroleRees, Anna, 2001. "Determinants of income diversification amongst rural households in Southern Mali," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 437-452, August.
    13. Takasaki, Yoshito & Barham, Bradford L. & Coomes, Oliver T., 2000. "Rapid Rural Appraisal in Humid Tropical Forests: An Asset Possession-Based Approach and Validation Methods for Wealth Assessment Among Forest Peasant Households," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(11), pages 1961-1977, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Suich, Helen & Howe, Caroline & Mace, Georgina, 2015. "Ecosystem services and poverty alleviation: A review of the empirical links," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 137-147.
    2. Ballet, Jérôme & Marchand, Lucile & Pelenc, Jérôme & Vos, Robin, 2018. "Capabilities, Identity, Aspirations and Ecosystem Services: An Integrated Framework," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 21-28.
    3. Rana, Kartika & Goyal, Neha & Prakash Sharma, Gyan, 2018. "Staging stewards of agro-ecosystems in the ecosystem services framework," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 33(PA), pages 89-101.
    4. Zheng Zang & Yuqing Zhang & Xu Xi, 2022. "Analysis of the Gross Ecosystem Product—Gross Domestic Product Synergistic States, Evolutionary Process, and Their Regional Contribution to the Chinese Mainland," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-14, May.
    5. Fei Wang & Degang Yang & Changjian Wang & Xinhuan Zhang, 2015. "The Effect of Payments for Ecosystem Services Programs on the Relationship of Livelihood Capital and Livelihood Strategy among Rural Communities in Northwestern China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(7), pages 1-21, July.
    6. Jing Zhang & Xueming Li & Tongliga Bao & Zhenghai Li & Chong Liu & Yuan Xu, 2021. "Linking Demographic Factors, Land Use, Ecosystem Services, and Human Well-Being: Insights from an Sandy Landscape, Uxin in Inner Mongolia, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-16, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shone, Bryan M. & Caviglia-Harris, Jill L., 2006. "Quantifying and comparing the value of non-timber forest products in the Amazon," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 249-267, June.
    2. Shibalal Meher, 2023. "Does poverty cause forest degradation? Evidence from a poor state in India," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 1684-1699, February.
    3. Bhattacharya, Haimanti & Innes, Robert, 2006. "Is There a Nexus between Poverty and Environment in Rural India?," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21201, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    4. Deon Filmer & Kinnon Scott, 2012. "Assessing Asset Indices," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(1), pages 359-392, February.
    5. Janina Isabel Steinert & Lucie Dale Cluver & G. J. Melendez-Torres & Sebastian Vollmer, 2018. "One Size Fits All? The Validity of a Composite Poverty Index Across Urban and Rural Households in South Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 51-72, February.
    6. Janz, Teresa & Augsburg, Britta & Gassmann, Franziska & Nimeh, Zina, 2023. "Leaving no one behind: Urban poverty traps in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    7. Abderrahman Yassine & Fatima Bakass, 2022. "Do Education and Employment Play a Role in Youth’s Poverty Alleviation? Evidence from Morocco," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-25, September.
    8. Richard Mussa, 2013. "Spatial Comparisons of Poverty and Inequality in Living Standards in Malawi," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 81(2), pages 192-210, June.
    9. Hai‐Anh Dang & Dean Jolliffe & Calogero Carletto, 2019. "Data Gaps, Data Incomparability, And Data Imputation: A Review Of Poverty Measurement Methods For Data‐Scarce Environments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 757-797, July.
    10. Carlo Azzarri & Gero Carletto & Benjamin Davis & Alberto Zezza, 2006. "Monitoring Poverty Without Consumption Data : An Application Using the Albania Panel Survey," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(1), pages 59-82, February.
    11. Mamadou Abdoulaye Diallo, 2022. "Subjective poverty and migration intention abroad: The case of Senegal," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 34(3), pages 410-424, September.
    12. Grimm, Michael & Harttgen, Kenneth & Klasen, Stephan & Misselhorn, Mark, 2008. "A Human Development Index by Income Groups," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 2527-2546, December.
    13. Corral, Paul & Radchenko, Natalia, 2017. "What’s So Spatial about Diversification in Nigeria?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 231-253.
    14. Patrick Ward, 2014. "Measuring the Level and Inequality of Wealth: An Application to China," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 613-635, December.
    15. Maitra, Sudeshna, 2016. "The poor get poorer: Tracking relative poverty in India using a durables-based mixture model," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 110-120.
    16. Asfaw, Solomon & Scognamillo, Antonio & Caprera, Gloria Di & Sitko, Nicholas & Ignaciuk, Adriana, 2019. "Heterogeneous impact of livelihood diversification on household welfare: Cross-country evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 278-295.
    17. Luisa Natali & Marta Moratti, 2012. "Measuring Household Welfare: Short versus long consumption modules," Papers inwopa671, Innocenti Working Papers.
    18. Lovaton Davila, Rodrigo & McCarthy, Aine Seitz & Gondwe, Dorothy & Kirdruang, Phatta & Sharma, Uttam, 2022. "Water, walls, and bicycles: wealth index composition using census microdata," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 79-120, March.
    19. Olufunke Alaba & Lumbwe Chola, 2014. "Socioeconomic Inequalities in Adult Obesity Prevalence in South Africa: A Decomposition Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-20, March.
    20. Bérenger, Valérie & Deutsch, Joseph & Silber, Jacques, 2013. "Durable goods, access to services and the derivation of an asset index: Comparing two methodologies and three countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 881-891.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:82:y:2012:i:c:p:33-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.