Which household tolerates droughts? – Strategies to secure pastoral livelihoods

Increasing frequencies of droughts pose a threat to pastoral livelihoods in drylands. Using a rangeland model, we analyze the effects of droughts and mobility strategies on herd size dynamics. Since the herd provides the basic income for mobile pastoralists, we evaluate herd dynamics as income to estimate the risk of endangered livelihoods due to droughts. This methodology enables us to identify critical changes in natural resource use systems which are prone to shocks. Model results show that the socio-economic type of the household and therewith its adaptive capacity to be mobile rather than the obvious ecological effects of droughts determine the opportunity to secure pastoral livelihoods. Concluding, we present a tool to analyze socio-economic strategies in order to detect under which circumstances a climatic shock translates to an economic crisis in pastoral livelihoods.