Productivity of certain crops has decreased. For example, in 2001, Puno was responsible for 81% of the national production of quinoa, but by 2016, this share had fallen to 45.2% . Even though this dissertation focuses on pre-existing vulnerability, an understanding of past and present climate dynamics will help us comprehend some of the challenges that households experience. Peru’s climate is affected by orography and controlled by water vapor transport and availability from/at the Amazon Basin, the Pacific Ocean’s behavior, and the presence of Lake Titicaca . Peru has climates that depend on altitude and aspect stemming from the Andes, which rise abruptly from a very narrow Pacific coastal strip to the west of the country. Annual precipitation is highly variable over the Andes and Altiplano.Among all high mountain ranges in the world, the Andes is the region that atmospheric science has studied the least . Furthermore, a detailed understanding of the characteristics that mountainous regional climate possesses is complicated. This is due to a scarcity in observations at the spatial and temporal resolution suitable for climate research in regions with a complex terrain; current Global Climate Models are also constrained in how they represent such topography . The Peruvian Andes starts at approximately 4.3° S latitude and runs south until 16.3° S. It is located between the Peruvian Amazon and the Pacific arid coast. Due to solar heating, the afternoon patterns over the Andes display high convergence at higher elevations, with divergence at the foothills. A reverse pattern is observed during nights and mornings . Precipitation varies on each of the Peruvian Andes slopes, with Pacific slopes characterized by arid and dry conditions, while Eastern slopes are warm, moist, and rainy . Altiplano’s precipitation is highly sensitive to large-scale circulation anomalies. It has a pronounced annual cycle with more than 70% of its precipitation concentrated in the austral summer . During austral summer,vertical grow water vapor from the Amazon basin is present in high concentrations in the boundary layer, which destabilizes the tropospheric column .
Furthermore, rainfall happens in intense episodes that last one to two weeks, followed by dry spells of equal duration. Changes in the moisture transport over the eastern central Andean slopes produce moisture fluctuations over the Altiplano, which affects precipitation . Climate variability in this region is influenced greatly by El Niño Southern Oscillations’ modulation over the western Altiplano . ENSO is characterized by irregular two to seven-year fluctuations between a warm phase and a cold phase . It’s worth emphasizing that this Altiplano region is markedly different than other areas of Peru. The ENSO warm phase shows an 88% increase in precipitation over the northern coastal region . However, a decrease of 18% in precipitation over the Southern highland and Altiplano area is experienced during the same warm phase . Exhibited impacts are opposite during ENSO cold phases but at different amplitudes than those displayed during the warm phases. In terms of temperature, conditions can reach extremes. Frigid temperatures prevail at night due to loss of heat through low cloud coverage, atmospheric density, and vapor pressure. Throughout the year, especially at higher elevations, these temperatures drop below freezing . During the day, average air temperature ranges from −10°C to 23°C. Frost, hail, and cold temperature then persist in the region. These conditions, in combination with social conditions, create great impacts on agriculture and livelihoods. Asset-based vulnerability assessments are helpful in identifying the available resources that can aid human agency. However, structured survey methodologies cannot capture by themselves a contextual understanding of local realities . Operationalizing social vulnerability requires an understanding of the structural factors involved, the uncertainties that individuals deal with , and the external constraints placed on assets . These assessments must attend to context and recognize that resources do not exist or are developed uniformly across groups . Approaches that might work in a particular location or with a particular socioeconomic group may not work elsewhere or with other groups . Indicators that assess vulnerability do not necessarily generalize to other locations . Therefore, it is imperative to understand the local context and the environment in which the population deals with threats. Selecting which indicators are essential for a specific location and understanding local context is possible by employing ethnographic and fieldwork methodologies.
Exploring, unpacking, and describing the local perceptions and social meaning of a phenomenon are believed to be a starting point for qualitative research . It is essential to understand the importance of ethnographic fieldwork in gathering insights into the relationship between culture and climate. Engaging in daily life and social relationships through fieldwork and participant observation provide such contextual understanding . Eakin, a geographer, gathered ethnographic data on climate and economic change in rural Mexico. She expressed that “some of my greatest insights into the livelihoods of farmers in the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley came from simply being there: helping with the harvest, chatting with mothers outside the primary school, attending a wedding celebration or school graduation. Alone, none of these methods and data sources would have been sufficient to understand the full complexity of the farmers’ vulnerability” . Qualitative evidence relating to people’s perspectives and views aids in determining what interventions are appropriate in alleviating risks and reducing vulnerabilities. Furthermore, it allows discoveries to arise unexpectedly due to the slow accumulation of evidence and provides entry points for intervention . It can allow us to detect key barriers to change, identify local resources, aid in the selection of indicators, and create action plans. These types of studies aid in formulating relevant policies and guide assessments that used structured survey datasets. Before developing an asset-based assessment, it is imperative to understand the ‘why,’ ‘how,’ and ‘under what circumstances’ such assets influence social vulnerability. Neither qualitative nor quantitative research approaches by themselves address the full picture. The complexity of assessing vulnerability requires using both approaches to build on each other. Qualitative approaches can be used to unpack the processes and contextual factors that have contributed to the failure or success of a certain practice. After such information is collected and processed, quantitative approaches can be used to build on the results. During the fieldwork campaign, archival data were collected to complement the information obtained during ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews.
These secondary data include reports , publications, news articles, and documents concerning social vulnerability and weather events for the region. Information from INDECI related to weather emergencies was collected for a total of 415 reports. This information was collected from government ministries, local researchers, universities, and NGOs who have worked in the area. News articles and other documents were collected from internet sources and via library facilities. The majority of these data were not available in digital form or were only available in archives from the organizations. These observations aid in understanding Puno’s culture and social mechanisms. Moreover, they are imperative to understanding differences between Puno’s department and the customs of neighboring geographical regions. This aids in understanding what behaviors are common in the region versus unique to Puno. Activities and interactions were observed in four nearby departments: Tacna, Moquegua, Arequipa, and Cuzco. Various visits to Bolivia aided in understanding Puno’s uniqueness due to its connection with main geographical features, such as the Altiplano and Lake Titicaca,vertical outdoor farming and similarities among linguistics groups . Because of the extend time frame of my observations, I was able to attend numerous important religious festivities and local activities. Experiencing these activities on more than one occasion and at more than one location helped me better understand situations that only happened once, versus recurring ones. Furthermore, experiencing the weather myself and comparing these experiences to those expressed by locals enhanced my understanding of local biases related to weather events. Structured interviews frequently produce quantitative information; therefore, the qualitative information that inform this study comes from semi-structured interviews. These interviews are somewhat like guided conversations. They are designed with open-ended questions and conducted in conjunction with observational data collection . In comparison to quantitative analysis, qualitative studies generally involve a smaller sample size than quantitative ones . However, a formula is not available for determining sample size in a qualitative analysis. A series of guidelines are present in the literature to aid in the selection of a sample size. Various approaches could be used to determine what is an optimal sample size. Literature about qualitative research has mentioned fifteen as the smallest acceptable sample size . Meanwhile, Ritchie et al. stated that sample sizes in qualitative studies regularly “lie under 50.” Experienced qualitative researchers have stated that after around 20 interviews, little that is ‘new’ comes out of transcripts . I follow the concept of saturation here in order to stay faithful to qualitative research principles .
Reaching saturation occurs when new data collected do not shed any further light on the issues covered by the study. Saturation can be reached by using maximum variation sampling and an educated guess. Maximum variation sampling involves selecting participants based on their specific characteristics, making sure to sample across the range of these characteristics. Participants belong to one of the following two groups: administrative personnel and farmers. Administrative personnel include decision makers at regional, provincial, and municipality levels. Not all the participants are farmers themselves, but they have some decision-making power over the region of interest.The second group comprises farmers . To ensure maximal variation of the sample, participants in this group represented various subgroups: male or female, different age groups, different primary languages, either subsistence or commercial farmers, and farmers with or without livestock. A final sample size was determined after achieving saturation and following maximum variation. This study consists of 55 participants consisting of 10 administrative personnel and 45 agricultural household heads. At the beginning of the interview verbal consent was obtained from the participants. The interviews were conducted in Spanish unless a participant felt more comfortable speaking a native language . I am fluent in Spanish, but a trusted translator was present if the interviewee preferred to talk in a native language. The availability of resources and entitlements shapes social vulnerability. However, an awareness of the pressures external to social vulnerability is imperative to understand the local context in which these vulnerability conditions occur. This dissertation focuses on assessing social vulnerability; as mentioned before, that does not equate to undervaluing the effects of the weather hazard itself. The external factors in this section relate to the weather events and the resulting impacts experienced by multiple stakeholders during the fieldwork campaign, as well as the challenges that they encountered. Agrometeorological reports from the Peruvian National Weather Service complement the observations, testimonies, and reports I obtained from stakeholders through ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews. Here I also used written media sources—e.g., newspapers—to complement previous information. The fieldwork campaign started in January 2016 and finished in March 2017, and during this time frame, Puno experienced numerous weather-related events: frosts, drought, flooding, strong winds, hail, snow, and thunderstorms. According to local reports from the Instituto Nacional de Defensa Civil —the institute in charge of disaster management and prevention—the region reported a total of 415 weather-related emergencies during those months. Each report includes a summary of all the damages experienced inside the municipality for a given weather event. The INDECI representative for each province creates and sends those reports to the regional office. However, these reports lack standardization of meteorological variables that make difficult the understanding of the impacts. These reports are per municipality and are not representative of the event’s intensity or the spatial extent of the damage. Also, not every extreme weather condition appears in a report, since they only include emergencies. Due to the nature of reports and experiences during the fieldwork campaign, this section focuses on low-temperature events and drought conditions in Puno. The two types of weather hazards present different issues with respect to their relationship with human agency and social vulnerability. Therefore, this section has two subsections for each of the hazards and its relationship to vulnerability. Low-temperature events are prevalent in the region, and their impacts are highly related to a lack of assets. A description of the relationship between low-temperature and its impacts gives specific examples of the problem going beyond just the experience of cold temperatures. On the other hand, drought conditions in Puno are challenging to predict and report.