Socio-Economic / Demographic Component in the CPC Ecuador

There is a wealth of socio-economic and demographic (SED) data in the CPC Ecuador Projects. The first SED survey was administered to a sample of colonist households in 1990. That survey was followed up by a second SED survey in 1999 that revisited the same farms originally visited in 1990, thus creating a longitudinal survey. This longitudinal survey differs from many common longitudinal surveys in that it follows plots of land rather than individual households, and the reason for that is described below.

In 1990, the vast majority of fincas, or farms, contained one household and averaged 50 hectares in size. In 1999, the survey teams returned to these plots of land expecting to interview the same households, only to discover that many of the fincas had been subdivided into smaller parcels over the previous nine years, resulting in more than one household per finca. It was at this time that it became necessary to follow the plot of land rather than the household in this longitudinal study.

The 1999 SED colonist survey was funded by NASA, and the data derived from it and the 1990 SED survey are being combined with geospatial data, such as finca plot boundaries, roads, rivers, community locations, and satellite imagery in order to better understand the dynamics and drivers associated with land use change over time.

In 2000, a community survey was conducted in 65 communities in the colonist area that were referenced in one form or another during the 1999 household survey. Relevant information was collected pertaining to communities and the services that they provide to nearby farmers.

In 2001, a fourth SED survey was conducted in the Oriente, but this time the work was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the interviewees were households in indigenous communities. Members of five different indigenous groups (Quichua, Shuar, Cofán, Secoya, and Huaorani) in 26 communities were surveyed and data similar to that gathered in the colonist areas was collected.

Finally, at that same time, community-based SED surveys were conducted in the same 26 indigenous communities.

Detailed descriptions of each of the colonist and indigenous SED databases are provided. Follow the links on the sidebar to the left to go to the appropriate pages. Also provided are the actual survey instruments (questionnaires) that were used, the codebooks, and any available surveyor manuals.