Over the past several decades the Nang Rong district, northeastern Thailand, has undergone dramatic changes in four primarily interrelated areas including: (a) rapid growth of market agriculture, (b) high rates of deforestation, (c) high rates of out-migration, and (d) intensive social and economic development. With these changes, the district has also experienced significant fertility decline, increased contraceptive use, increased electrification, the expansion and improvement of road networks, greater availability and use of bus services, more widespread use of tractors for land preparation, an expansion in the number of mechanized rice mills, and improvements in water storage and sanitation.
The rapid social and economic changes observed in Nang Rong over the past several decades are likely to have significant impacts on social networks and the adaptation of innovation, which in turn interact with and influence the manner in which the population affects the environment. Moreover, human-related changes in the environment may produce important feedbacks on the population. These feedbacks may include environmental forcing factors which affect human behavior (e.g. Rates of in- and out-migration). Nang Rong district provides the ideal context for understanding changes in social networks, migration, agricultural practices, land use/land cover dynamics, and population-environment interactions which accompany rapid social and economic development.
The overall goals of the Nang Rong research involve a comprehensive account of social, economic, demographic, and environmental change. To date, two primary issues have been defined and examined including social networks at the household and village levels, and the relationships between population and environment within a spatial context. Project research focuses upon the interrelationships among five principal factors which may involve one or both of the issues noted above. These five factors include: (1) population dynamics at the individual, household, and community levels, (2) spatial and temporal pattern, composition, and organization of land use/land cover with emphasis on changes in deforestation and its resulting land fragmentation, (3) village location, water, transportation, and health facility accessibility, land competition, and land suitability, (4) biophysical gradients such as soil fertility, moisture, and topography, (5) social and economic change over the past decades in Nang Rong district, Thailand.
