Livelihood, irrigation, and landslide: Unfolding the human-water-land nexus using an integrative framework

Irrigation-induced landslides occur globally and cause destructive consequences. Farmers’ dual roles as the cause and victim of irrigation-induced landslides call for systematic assessment of the nested human-water-land interactions to mitigate landslides. This study develops an analytical framework based on social-ecological system framework (SESF) and sustainable livelihood framework (SLF), which is applied to diagnose human-water-land interactions in the case of Heifangtai (HFT) in Loess Plateau, China. A three-tiered indicator system includes 68 indicators to explicitly assess the first- and second-tier variables in the integrative SESF-SLF. Multi-sourced data was collected, triangulated, and analyzed to unfold the interactions, dynamics, and evolutions in the regional SES and individual livelihood. The results show that the interactions between farmers’ livelihood strategies and the carrying capacity of regional land and water systems are the primary drivers shaping social-ecological relationships in HFT, followed by resource utilization and actors’ decision-making. Development opportunities are provided based on SES diagnosis, and methodological issues of framework construction and method and data integration are discussed. Integrating individual livelihood perspectives into SES provides a more nuanced solution to explain the specifics of resources utilized in livelihood strategies, which shows applicability and suitability in HFT and other similar cases of human-water-land interaction.