Assessment of sustainable livelihoods of different farmers in hilly red soil erosion areas of southern China

Abstract

Livelihood vulnerability in environmentally fragile areas is emerging as a key issue due to its positive feedback to environmental degradation. Assessment of sustainable livelihoods is a crucial prerequisite for targeting interventions. However, aggregated analysis usually obtained ambiguous conclusions because they ignored the heterogeneity of rural households. Here, we evaluated the livelihood sustainability of different rural households by constructing an improved Livelihood Sustainability Index (LSI) in hilly red soil erosion areas of southern China. Changting County was selected as the study case by virtue of its unique representativeness in soil erosion and poverty. The results showed ..