Herders Mobility GPS Tracking:Insights From Novel Trajectory Data

Kraehnert K, Vigh M, Knoth C, Teickner H, Purevtseren M, Sugar M, Pebesma E

Abstract

Our study provides insights on one particular aspect of human mobility: We explore how nomadic households adjust their movements to cope with an extreme weather event. The novelty of our approach lies in combining precise household trajectories, obtained from GPS data recorded over a 9-month period, with socio-economic data from the same households. The identification strategy takes advantage of unusual circumstances: While recording locational information, an extreme winter event occurred that caused mass livestock deaths and varied strongly in its spatial intensity. Our focus is on movements that households undertake with their livestock across large distances to less affected areas during the midst of the winter. Results show that living in a severely affected area strongly decreases the probability to conduct a movement during the extreme event. While in severely affected areas livestock was at risk of starving and freezing, the very same climatic conditions -high snow depth and low temperatures -constrained mobility. Wealth in livestock is a strong predictor for conducting a movement. However, neither land rights, nor experience in herding influence households' movement patterns. The negative effect of the extreme winter on the timing of the movement is strongest for households with smaller herds.