Detecting critical patterns of change in social-ecological systems based on agroforestry in Equatorial America – D-Critical

The project is divided in five Work-Packages (WPs).

WP1: ‘Ocean-Terrestrial Teleconnections’ will construct time-series of productivity from forests and agroforestry areas based on previous work of the consortium (Clerici et al. 2016, Clerici et al. 2017, Pedraza et al. 2018) and the compilation of new data.

WP2: ’Knowledge and Local Dynamics of Agroforestry Systems‘ will work on selected agroforestry zones defined in coordination with WP1. The main conceptual gap is related to the role of knowledge and learning dynamics for adaptive network governance that can create ‘knowledge ecosystems’ through collective action and self-governance when dealing with all sorts of environmental issues (Hess and Ostrom 2007).

WP3 ‘Time Series Modelling’ will work on probabilistic modelling of time series data of productivity (both from remote sensing and local historical data) and commodity prices selected agroforestry areas testing to identify past dynamics, and potentially, forecasting too.

WP4 ‘Co-constructing models of Critical Transitions’ will co-construct with the stakeholders, protocols to manage proactively multiple risks, in a gender and intercultural perspective. According to the United Nations (https://www.unisdr.org/2006/ppew/about-ppew/in-brief.htm) Early Warning Systems (EWS) are composed of 4 key elements: Risk knowledge, Monitoring and warning service, Dissemination and communication, and Response capability (Wiltshire 2006). This proposal will contribute mostly to the first three aspects by: examining closely how El Niño/La Niña and low commodity prices may have affected specific target areas (Risk Knowledge); how free available satellite data can be used for detecting changes in zones subject to repeated stresses (Monitoring and warning service); by understanding how risk knowledge and monitoring can be apprehended by final users (Dissemination and communication).

WP5 ‘Coordination and dissemination’ will assure close collaboration between researchers of the project and stakeholders and that objectives are achieved in a timely manner.

Main results indicate that agroforestry areas in Equatorial America have exposure and sensitivity that cluster risks in a typology determined by ENSO increasing or decreasing precipitation and that ENSO effects appear to be increasing in the last 30 years compared to the same period before.

Local dynamics of multi-risk assessment suggest a strong network system in Colombia that is beginning to be replicated in Ecuador.

To a large extent, early warning systems rely on expert knowledge that includes a monthly analysis of weather predictions and their implications for main agricultural products (coffee, cacao, plantain banana...).

Equatorial countries are extremely exposed to ENSO dynamics so they constitute a research and social laboratory to learn about adaptation to global changes.

Future research could include the creation of observatories that can work on time scales longer than the current monthly approach.

Current deliverables of the project include: Modified biomes/ecoregions map for the interpretation of teleconnections (https://hal.science/hal-04494322); Book chapter “in press” about the agroforestry challenges in the Manabí region (various authors of the consortium) (https://hal.science/hal-04494267)
Preprint of manuscript analyzing the public policies that have allowed the creation of ‘Mesas Técnicas’ in Colombia (https://hal.science/hal-04296319)

More than 300 million ha in Latin America are devoted to agroforestry (mixtures of productive and shade trees) where the impacts of cyclical events of El Niño droughts, background climate change, institutional turmoil and stochastic price variation of agroforestry goods is very strong.
For more than 30 years, agroforestry areas in Latin America have been abandoned for other uses like cattle ranching or simply left alone because of rural exodus to cities. In this regard, agroforestry abandonment can be considered a critical transition of a social-ecological system.
We chose here to examine the said combined effects in two pilot zones: the Central Andes of Colombia where institutional presence is strong but incomplete and the highland Amazonia in Ecuador populated mostly indigenous people where risk management is highly conditioned by cultural aspects and where women play the leading role in the management of the agricultural systems.
The work is divided in 5 complementary work-packages that will collect time series of land productivity of the target areas from both remote sensing and local data, that in turn will be correlated to variation in the El Niño indices and used to fit predictive models.
In parallel, an institutional analysis will be conducted to understand how knowledge about climatic and economical risk is acquired and used (or not) by the selected actors in Colombia and Ecuador. A special focus will be given to the dynamics of a pioneer program by FAO that channels meteorological information to growers, including El Niño conditions, that has been deployed in various parts of Colombia.
Through workshops, the project will co-construct scenarios of the potential different combined effects of climatic, economic and institutional risks to lay the bases of an early warning system of unfavorable conditions that may lead to land abandonment in the target countries.