Using household survey data to identify large-scale food security patterns across Uganda

To target food security interventions for smallholder households, decision makers need large-scale information, such as maps on poverty, food security and key livelihood activities. Such information is often based on expert knowledge or aggregated data, despite the fact that food security and povert...

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Autores principales: Wichern, Jannike, Heerwaarden, Joost van, Bruin, S. de, Descheemaeker, Katrien K., Asten, Piet J.A. van, Giller, Kenneth E., Wijk, Mark T. van
Formato: Journal Article
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/98923
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author Wichern, Jannike
Heerwaarden, Joost van
Bruin, S. de
Descheemaeker, Katrien K.
Asten, Piet J.A. van
Giller, Kenneth E.
Wijk, Mark T. van
author_browse Asten, Piet J.A. van
Bruin, S. de
Descheemaeker, Katrien K.
Giller, Kenneth E.
Heerwaarden, Joost van
Wichern, Jannike
Wijk, Mark T. van
author_facet Wichern, Jannike
Heerwaarden, Joost van
Bruin, S. de
Descheemaeker, Katrien K.
Asten, Piet J.A. van
Giller, Kenneth E.
Wijk, Mark T. van
author_sort Wichern, Jannike
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description To target food security interventions for smallholder households, decision makers need large-scale information, such as maps on poverty, food security and key livelihood activities. Such information is often based on expert knowledge or aggregated data, despite the fact that food security and poverty are driven largely by processes at the household level. At present, it is unclear if and how household level information can contribute to the spatial prediction of such welfare indicators or to what extent local variability is ignored by current mapping efforts. A combination of geo-referenced household level information with spatially continuous information is an underused approach to quantify local and large-scale variation, while it can provide a direct estimate of the variability of welfare indicators at the most relevant scale. We applied a stepwise regression kriging procedure to translate point information to spatially explicit patterns and create country-wide predictions with associated uncertainty estimates for indicators on food availability and related livelihood activities using household survey data from Uganda. With few exceptions, predictions of the indicators were weak, highlighting the difficulty in capturing variability at larger scale. Household explanatory variables identified little additional variation compared to environmental explanatory variables alone. Spatial predictability was strongest for indicators whose distribution was determined by environmental gradients. In contrast, indicators of crops that were more ubiquitously present across agroecological zones showed large local variation, which often overruled large-scale patterns. Our procedure adds to existing approaches that often only show large-scale patterns by revealing that local variation in welfare is large. Interventions that aim to target the poor must recognise that diversity in livelihood activities for income generation within any given area often overrides the variability of livelihood activities between distant regions in the country.
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spelling CGSpace989232024-05-23T19:41:36Z Using household survey data to identify large-scale food security patterns across Uganda Wichern, Jannike Heerwaarden, Joost van Bruin, S. de Descheemaeker, Katrien K. Asten, Piet J.A. van Giller, Kenneth E. Wijk, Mark T. van food security data households surveys To target food security interventions for smallholder households, decision makers need large-scale information, such as maps on poverty, food security and key livelihood activities. Such information is often based on expert knowledge or aggregated data, despite the fact that food security and poverty are driven largely by processes at the household level. At present, it is unclear if and how household level information can contribute to the spatial prediction of such welfare indicators or to what extent local variability is ignored by current mapping efforts. A combination of geo-referenced household level information with spatially continuous information is an underused approach to quantify local and large-scale variation, while it can provide a direct estimate of the variability of welfare indicators at the most relevant scale. We applied a stepwise regression kriging procedure to translate point information to spatially explicit patterns and create country-wide predictions with associated uncertainty estimates for indicators on food availability and related livelihood activities using household survey data from Uganda. With few exceptions, predictions of the indicators were weak, highlighting the difficulty in capturing variability at larger scale. Household explanatory variables identified little additional variation compared to environmental explanatory variables alone. Spatial predictability was strongest for indicators whose distribution was determined by environmental gradients. In contrast, indicators of crops that were more ubiquitously present across agroecological zones showed large local variation, which often overruled large-scale patterns. Our procedure adds to existing approaches that often only show large-scale patterns by revealing that local variation in welfare is large. Interventions that aim to target the poor must recognise that diversity in livelihood activities for income generation within any given area often overrides the variability of livelihood activities between distant regions in the country. 2018-12-13 2019-01-02T12:09:29Z 2019-01-02T12:09:29Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/98923 en Open Access Public Library of Science Wichern, J., Heerwaarden, J. Van, Bruin, S. De, Descheemaeker, K., Asten, P.J.A. Van, Giller, K.E. and Wijk, M.T. Van. 2018. Using household survey data to identify large-scale food security patterns across Uganda. PLoS ONE 13(12): e0208714
spellingShingle food security
data
households
surveys
Wichern, Jannike
Heerwaarden, Joost van
Bruin, S. de
Descheemaeker, Katrien K.
Asten, Piet J.A. van
Giller, Kenneth E.
Wijk, Mark T. van
Using household survey data to identify large-scale food security patterns across Uganda
title Using household survey data to identify large-scale food security patterns across Uganda
title_full Using household survey data to identify large-scale food security patterns across Uganda
title_fullStr Using household survey data to identify large-scale food security patterns across Uganda
title_full_unstemmed Using household survey data to identify large-scale food security patterns across Uganda
title_short Using household survey data to identify large-scale food security patterns across Uganda
title_sort using household survey data to identify large scale food security patterns across uganda
topic food security
data
households
surveys
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/98923
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