Coping or collapsing? How climate shocks fuel a poverty–deforestation feedback loop

Working paper Jan 2026 Sustainable Growth, Climate change, Climate change and environment

This paper investigates how droughts shape household production decisions and the resulting impacts on tree-cover loss in Zambia.

It finds that drought exposure reduces crop yields and increases the likelihood that households engage in charcoal production, particularly among poorer farmers located closer to markets. While charcoal production provides a short-term coping mechanism, it diverts labour from agricultural preparation, deepening vulnerability and reinforcing a cycle of declining productivity and environmental degradation. At the landscape level, these production shifts translate into higher tree-cover loss.