Exploring Social-Ecological Response Capacity to Drought of Swedish Farms

• Main Author: Ohlsson, Moa
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Stockholms universitet, Stockholm Resilience Centre 2019
• Subjects: Social-ecological systems; resilience; response capacity; ecosystem services; adaptive capacity; drought; rural; agriculture; Environmental Sciences; Miljövetenskap; Social Sciences Interdisciplinary; Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-170264

Ecosystem services are intrinsically social-ecological. The capacity to provide them over time is both dependent on the functional attributes of species that contribute to ecological processes and social assets underpinning management practices. Yet, these two dimensions are rarely integrated or empirically assessed, even though their interaction contributes to the overall capacity of a social-ecological system to respond. In this study, theoretical frameworks of resilience, adaptive capacity, and ecosystem services are combined to explore “social-ecological response capacity” as the ability of a social-ecological system to respond to extreme weather events. This study focuses on Swedish livestock farms and was set up in response to the drought of 2018 and concerns raised about the general lack of drought mitigation and adaptation strategies in Europe. 15 surveys and semi-structured interviews were conducted and combined with ecological data collected before the drought, to create a baseline for the capacity to respond before the disturbance. The relationship between assets and drought impact on farm performance was indirect and results revealed that social-ecological response capacity was not a mitigating factor of the impacts of drought on the financial and subjective success of farms. However, financial capital and diversification of income might have a disproportionate influence on the farms performance. Moreover, results showed that farms used a wide diversity of strategies to handle drought effects that focused on increasing current and future fodder supply. These findings can provide useful information for all stakeholders that rely on the stability and provision of essential ecosystem services when navigating similar, as well as other disturbances in the future. Additionally, this study contributes to insights on the empirical assessment of properties that are essential for specified and general resilience.