Capturing agroecosystem vulnerability and resilience

GROOT, J.C.J.; CORTEZ ARRIOLA, J.; ROSSING, W.A.H.,; AMENDOLA MASSIOTTI, R.D.; TITTONELL, P.

Sustainability

Basel

Año: 2016 vol. 8 p. 1206 - 1220

Vulnerability and resilience are two crucial attributes of social-ecological systems thatare used for analyzing the response to disturbances. We assess these properties in relation toagroecosystem buffer capacity and adaptive capacity, which depend on the ?window of opportunities?of possible changes in terms of selected performance indicators, i.e., the solution space. Thevulnerability of the system was quantified as the distance of performance indicators between originaland disturbed systems. The buffer capacity was derived from the size of the solution space that couldbe obtained after reconfiguration of farm components (crops, animals, fertilizers, etc.) that werepresent on the original farm, whereas the assessment of adaptive capacity was derived in a similarway, but after allowing innovation by introducing new components to the farm. To illustrate theapproach, we applied these concepts to two dairy farms in Northwest Michoacán, Mexico. After adisturbance resulting in a fodder maize yield decline, both economic profitability and soil organicmatter inputs were reduced. The scope for recovery was different between the farms, but the projectedimprovements in profitability and organic matter inputs would require considerable changes in thefarm configurations, and thus flexibility in farm management. High resilience requires a farmer withthe managerial ability to make the required changes to move through the proposed solution space.The approach we present here offers a generic quantitative assessment of vulnerability and resilienceconcepts, based on a combined assessment of the social and ecological dimensions of agroecosystems