Abstract
Soil moisture reflects the amount of water available to crops in the top layer of soil. As such, considering soil moisture provides important insight into water availability and ultimately crop yields in agricultural settings. In studies of climate change, food security, and health, however, soil moisture is rarely empirically considered despite its connection to crop health and yields. In this project, we aim to advance understanding of climate impacts on food security by incorporating soil moisture into quantitative models of child health. Combining spatially referenced health survey data from the Demographic and Health Surveys for 2005 and 2010 in Senegal and 2007, 2011, and 2014 in Bangladesh, with soil moisture data from the Famine Early Warning System Network Land Data Assimilation System, we explore the linkages between sub-annual and sub-seasonal climate conditions and child malnutrition in two rainfed agriculture dependent countries—Bangladesh and Senegal. Results suggest that soil moisture, measured on very short time scales, may be associated with reductions in anthropometric weight-for-height z-scores, but the relationship is highly dependent upon geographic context.
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Data availability
The DHS data is publically available at https://dhsprogram.com/data/. Soil moisture and NDVI data are publically available at https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/.
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The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the Minnesota Population Center (P2C HD041023) funded through a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). This study was also supported by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sustainable Intensification (SIIL) at Kansas State University through funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Cooperative Agreement (grant number AID-OAA-L-14–00006).
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Conceptualization: Ruthie Burrows, Kathryn Grace, Molly Brown, and Amy McNally; methodology: Ruthie Burrows, Kathryn Grace, and Molly Brown; formal analysis and investigation: Ruthie Burrows; writing—original draft preparation: Ruthie Burrows; writing—review and editing: Ruthie Burrows, Kathryn Grace, Molly Brown, and Amy McNally.
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Burrows, R.A., Grace, K., Brown, M.E. et al. Considering soil moisture in models of climate impacts on child health in farming-centric countries. Popul Environ 45, 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-023-00426-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-023-00426-3