Attachments
A. Situation analysis
Description of the disaster
Dzud is a Mongolian term for severe winter condition in which livestock would perish in large number due to malnutrition or direct cold. Mongolian herders have been following nomadic pastoralist ways of herding ever since the history was written. Now one-fourth of the Mongolian people are still travelling with their portable homes to find better pasture for their herd. Livestock is vital element of herders’ life as it’s their only source of livelihood. Herders consume livestock meat, use their milk to produce dairy food, sell their hide and wool for cash.
Livestock herding has been traditional lifestyle of Mongolians for centuries but now many herders migrate to a capital city for jobs with fixed salary. Due to climate change and other factors such as the frequency of unfavourable natural phenomenon (drought, cold wave) has been increasing rapidly in recent years and it has turned the herding into perilous business.
Mongolia has mostly dry and cold climate due to Siberian high and the temperature range between winter and summer is wide as it reaches +40 degrees Celsius in summer while -40 degrees Celsius in winter. During winter, most herders lack of hay and fodder due to financial restraints when the pasture is covered by thick layer of snow or ice. Herders would reserve hay bales in autumn but it’s never enough to feed the herd throughout the winter.
Each year, National Agency for Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring (NAMEM) publishes Dzud risk map which uses summer condition, pasture carrying capacity, livestock number, anomalous precipitation and temperature, snow depth, biomass, drought index, temperature forecast etc. to predict which regions may experience severe winter condition. On 2 January 2020, dzud risk map was published and 97 soums in 13 provinces were at very high risk, which triggered Dzud Early Action Protocol (EAP) for Mongolia. The threshold for trigger activation was when dzud risk map indicates 20 per cent coverage of the highest risk level over no less than 3 provinces is a best estimate for triggering with a return period near 1-in-5 years, although the rigor of this analysis is limited by factors discussed previously.
Through the EAP MRCS is delivering unrestricted cash assistance and livestock nutrition kits to the 1000 vulnerable households in the target areas to assist them in meeting their immediate needs and save their livestock and livelihoods. The early action will be completed within 2 months after the trigger date which is 8 Jan 2020. MRCS will target 8 provinces (Govi-Altai, Khovd, Arkhangai, Bulgan, Uvurkhangai, Dundgobi, Sukhbaatar, Khentii) which in that version of the Dzud risk map showed as very high risk of dzud. Even though early action was triggered, winter situation became worse and as stated by National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and National Agency for Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring (NAMEM) on 12 January 2020, over 70 per cent of the country is covered by 10-30 cm snow layer and 41 soums in nine provinces in white dzud condition while 51 soums in 16 provinces (Table 1) are near white dzud.
As NAMEM states, the coldest temperature reached was -48 Celsius in Zavkhan province and in Khangai region average night temperature is 30-39 Celsius, In Gobi region -23 to -29 Celsius, Western region -35 to -48 Celsius and other parts the average night temperature -25 to -32 Celsius. In many provinces, average monthly temperature was lower than annual average and province authorities have requested from the government for assistance of hay and fodder, livestock medicines.
Through interviews conducted during the assessment, it was noted that most herders are already out of their reserved forage as they have been feeding the livestock with extra forage to keep them alive during the lethal cold. The herders have said that if cash assistance is provided, they could use it to buy forage from nearby suppliers and also spend for their specific needs such as warm clothes, food, medicine. In addition, livestock mineral and vitamin supplies are essentially needed as once the herd are already cold stressed and malnourished, their digestive system gets shocked and will be unable to digest even when forage is supplied. Therefore, only mineral and vitamin supplies will help the herd to recover from the cold stress.