The research questions

• What is the livelihood dependence on livestock in study watersheds, specifically related to income strategies and intra-household and gendered allocation of resources?
• What are the biophysical interactions among water, land and vegetation in watersheds, particularly as these relate to livestock systems?
• What is the potential for increasing the poverty reduction impacts of livestock through intensification of watershed resource use, and the relationship between off-farm and off-watershed livelihood support strategies?
• What are the relationships between private resource management and the use, access, and management of common property in watersheds, particularly as related to water and rainfall input for productive purposes?
• What socio-economic and biophysical inter-linkages determine watershed and farm productivity and environmental sustainability?
• What is the role of watershed context - rural-urban dynamics, markets, credit, capacity building, and institutional arrangements -in enhancing or limiting the poverty impacts of livestock-environment interactions?

Objective

To advance the knowledge base on the relationships at the core of the livestock-environment-watershed tirade to improve impact of watershed development activities on the livelihood of the poor and on the environment.

Methods

• The LEAD-India Research study was conducted in five sites which had all been involved in watershed development programmes (Kosgi, Vaiju Babulgoan, Kanakanala, Kayanpur and Ladki nadi). These meso-scale watersheds (3,500 – 13,000 ha) represented a diversity of semi arid areas in India, and differed in relative resource scarcity, economic integration including market access, development implementation partnership arrangements (GO, NGO, GO-NGO, NGO-CBO) and in the focus of the watershed development projects (SWC / NRM / NRM & SWM / Livelihoods).
• Hydrological and land use analysis employing GIS/RS techniques were used to explore the biophysical characteristics in relations to livestock management practices.
• Socioeconomic and institutional assessments were done using primary information regarding livestock and livelihood patterns, resource management and institutions was collected at the village/hamlet level in all watersheds through focused PRAs and key informant interviews. These qualitative data were ranked by the partner organizations, using the methodological framework provided by Quantifies Participatory Analysis (QPA).
• Household level data was collected from a sample of 200 households in each watershed.

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