Please note that this session was withdrawn and is no longer available in the respective programme. This withdrawal might have been the result of a merge with another session.
ITS3.6/BG8.35 | Land management strategies for global change adaptation in mountain rural areas
PICO
Land management strategies for global change adaptation in mountain rural areas
Convener: Diana Pascual Sanchez | Co-conveners: Eduard Pla, Estela Nadal Romero, Noemí Lana-Renault, Michael Vrahnakis
Traditional primary activities developed in an extensive low-input basis have been the core of economics in mountain areas for centuries, especially in the Mediterranean region. They have developed heterogeneous landscapes, which have been highly adapted to the environmental conditions, including climate variations or forest fires. However, most of these landscapes have been abandoned in the last century, resulting in rapid environmental alterations, and societies with poor adaptation and low resilience to climate/global change.
Changes in land use have direct implications on regional sustainability and they are one of the few climate change adaptation measures that can be adopted and adjusted over large areas in mountainous regions. A more heterogeneous landscape may improve the multi-sectorial resistance and resilience to the projected increase in aridity and drought severity or a decrease in water resources. In this context, a successful land use transformation must reduce not only the climate change-associated risks, but it must improve the social and economic sustainability as well.
Therefore, this session aims to promote a broad multi-sectorial biophysical and socioeconomic perspective to assess the efficiency of land management strategies and measures to improve landscape resilience and reduce climate change associated risks in mountain areas.
Specific topics of interest may address the followings:
- Land management strategies to improve landscape resilience in mountain areas.
- Recovering and maintaining traditional activities, such as extensive farming, as key tools for recovering mosaic landscapes.
- Key ecosystem services in cultural mosaic landscapes: i) soil fertility, ii) biomass provision iii) biodiversity, iv) maintenance of pastoral communities, v) reduction of forest fires, iv) blue water provision.
- Assessment of climate change adaptation measures from a multi- and cross-sectorial perspective.
- Modelling of environmental and socioeconomic impact of the landscape resilience measures in a spatially broader context.