Description

Abstract: Livestock production in semi-arid grasslands is extremely vulnerable to climate change through altered water resource and disease dynamics. These vulnerabilities impact livestock survival and marketability, household livelihoods and health, and wildlife populations by enhancing zoonotic disease transmission pathways. Models that can integrate the interactions between economic choices, resource availability, human and animal health, and climate change will provide an important tool to evaluate adaptive policy and management strategies to climate change impacts. This research brief reports on preliminary modeling efforts to connect climate change, hydrologic-based ecosystem services, and disease transmission as part of a “one health” approach linking landscape management to broader public wellbeing and rural livelihood outcomes in the Ruaha landscape of Tanzania.