Remote sensing of environment and disaster laboratory

Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo, JapanCountry-wide human-elephant conflict risk assessment
under future climate-induced changes in Thailand
Nuntikorn KITRATPORN and Wataru TAKEUCHI
Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo, Japan
ABSTRACT: Humans and the endangered Asian elephants are under increasing competition for resources which deteriorates the sustainability of both the species conservation efforts
and human development. With the multi-dimensional nature of such conflicts and the impending effects from climate change, human-elephant conflict (HEC) management needs broader
assessment beyond reactively addressing direct losses. Here, adopting risk framework along with future projections under Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and Shared
Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), we proposed HEC risk assessment framework and analyzed its spatial distribution under baseline (2000-2019) and near future (2025-2044) forThailand. Across all future scenarios, we projected four forest complexes in northern Thailand with an average of 1.7%-7.4% increase in HEC risk due to higher hazard and vulnerability
from more favorable habitat conditions and increasing drought probability. 69% of Thailand forest complex, especially in lower latitude, were projected with risk reduction due mainly todecreasing habitat suitability. Our proposed framework is flexible allowing additional sub-indicators and can be extended to other areas and targeted species.

1. BACKGROUND

HazardExposure
Vulnerability

3. RESULTS & DISCUSSIONS

Validation of baseline risk: average AUC = 0.71± 0.01

• Some areas in Thailand, an average of 212 nights were annually spent byhousehold in guarding crops against elephant-raiding and the HEC-induced cost issignificant compared to the average household income (Jarungrattanapong et al., 2017)•Wildlife threats are perceived as small frequent events and commonly neglected in disaster risk
management policies (Gaillard, 2019), but they accumulate and erode society's ability to achievesustainable development (UNISDR, 2015).

• Lack of landscape-scale assessment led to incomplete awareness of the situationand short-sighted decision-making (Gubbi et al, 2014; Goswami and Vasudev, 2017).

𝑅𝐼𝑆𝐾 = 𝑓(𝐻𝑎𝑧𝑎𝑟𝑑, 𝐸𝑥𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒, 𝑉𝑢𝑙𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦)

Risk(UNSDIR, 2015; IPCC, 2012; IPCC, 2014)

HEC risk is defined as wild elephant occurrences (hazard) in overlapping areas with rural humanpopulation (exposure) who possess various vulnerable conditions (vulnerability).
Objective: Applied risk framework to quantify spatial distribution of HEC risk under baseline (2000-2019)and future (2025-2044) in Thailand

2. METHODOLOGY
Fig 3. . Spatial distribution of baseline risk components including Hazard (a), Exposure (b), and Vulnerability (c) alongwith their average percent change under future scenarios.

Fig 2: HEC risk framework, red-boxes are sub-indicators that weresimulated in this study, gray boxes are directly obtained from existing data

Table 1 . Four future scenarios in this study
Climate Change
RCP4.5-SSP2
RCP8.5-SSP5‘Middle-of-the-road’ ‘Business-as-usual’

Table 2. Climatic dataset used

Buffer Zones
NoYes

Fig 1: Distribution of terrestrial forest complex(FC) and the estimated wild elephant population.

A1

A2(no land conversion in buffer zone)

B1

Variablesv

B2

DatasetBaseline
Land cover- Abandon
Image classification from- Crops
MOD09,- PlantationsSRTM,- Built-up
ALOS-PALSA (yearly composite)- Water
Transport
GRIP4 and Thai RailwayWater
HydroSHED and JRC
TRI
SRTM
FutureLand cover
1. Land demand projection basedon IIASA trajectory and otherassumptions, 2. Spatial allocation
using CLUS model
OthersAssumed static~25 km

Fig 4. The HEC risk for baseline and percent change under fourfuture scenarios.

Fig 5. Boxplots of the future HEC Risk and underlying
components including Hazard, Exposure, and Vulnerability.
The red triangle represented the baseline value.

Daily

Drought indicators (KBDIstandard anomaly >1.5)__

1 [0.968𝑒 !.!#$%×'()* − 8.3]×10 3
800−𝐾𝐵𝐷𝐼𝑡_+𝐾𝐵𝐷𝐼𝑡 1− (100 ×𝑃𝑟)
1 + 10.88𝑒 (,!.!##-×./)001)2)

Table 4. Future land demand projection assumptions

Table 3. Land cover and land features usedVariables

ERA5 reanalysis (Baseline)
NEX-GDDP (Future)

Bioclimatic variables

An average -3.1% to -57.9% risk reduction in 11FC

Spatial Temporal
resolution resolution

Dataset

Min temperature
Max temperature
Precipitation

An average 1.7% to 7.4% increase in risk (4 FCs)

SpatialTemporalLC Typeresolution resolution Water

500 m
90 m
25 m
Vector
30 m
90 m

500 m

Assumption
Constant from 2015

Built-up

Gao, J. & O’Neill, B. C., 2020

ForestIncrease up to 40% (Master Plan, 2019)2014-2016 Agriculture A function of production demand & yield
2000
Production (tonnes) (R2= 0.9)
2015
𝑃𝑆𝑆𝑃2 𝑆𝑆𝑃5 = 𝛽𝑃0 + 𝛽𝑃1𝑥1 + 𝛽𝑃2𝑥2 + 𝛽𝑃3𝑥3
Yield (tonnes/ha) (R2 >0.7)
𝑌𝑆𝑆𝑃5 = 𝛽𝑌0 + 𝛽𝑌1𝑥2
𝑌𝑆𝑆𝑃2 = 2F3 𝑌𝑆𝑆𝑃5
2014-2016𝑥1𝑎𝑔𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝐺𝐷𝑃 % , 𝑥2 𝐺𝐷𝑃. 𝑃𝑃𝑃 , 𝑥3 𝑟𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑜𝑝
2000
AbandonFulfill after other land demands are met
2045

Normalization:

4. CONCLUSIONS & FUTURE WORK• The proposed framework can identify degree and direction of changes in HEC risk.
• Future policies can base on projected maps toi) limited human access in areas with existing low human population but high future HEC risk [north],ii) implement habitat restoration in area with currently high elephant population but lower future habitat
suitability [eastern FC, western FC, and southern region].
• More broadly, the findings attested the importance of climate change consideration in conservation planningwhich showed to impact both wild elephants and humans.
• Spatial policy like buffer zones can create both negative and positive impacts on HEC risk. More specific policy
should be evaluated.
• Future work can expand variable that represent human dimensions and obtain validation from other locationsv!!"#$%(!)
𝐼′𝑖 =#() ! "#$% !
%!

Index aggregation: 𝐶𝐼𝑖 = ∏-*+, 𝐼 . 𝑤𝑖 ∑#$! &!

REFERENCE IUCN Asian Elephant Specialist Group. Asian Elephant Range States Meeting: Final Report. Jakarta, Indonesia (2017). UNISDR. Making Development Sustainable: The Future of Disaster Risk Management. Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Tech.

vRep., United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Geneva, Switzerland (2015). IPCC. National systems for managing the risks from climate extremes and disasters, vol. 9781107025 (2012). IPCC. Summary for Policymakers. In Field, C. B. et al. (eds.) Climate Change Impacts,
Adaptation and Vulnerability - Contributions of the Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report, 1–32, (2014). Leimgruber, P. et al. Fragmentation of Asia’s remaining wildlands: Implications for Asian elephant conservation. Animal Conserv. 6, 347–359. Jarungrattanapong, R., Olewiler, N. &Nabangchang, O. A payment for ecosystem services program to support elephant conservation and reduce human-elephant conflict in Thailand. chap. 10, 1–13 (World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Nairobi, 2017).

For further details, contact: Nuntikorn Kitratporn, Bw-601, 6-1, Komaba 4-chome, Meguro, Tokyo 153-8505 JAPAN (URL: http://wtlab.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ E-mail: n.Kitratporn@gmail.com)