Browsing by Browse by FOR 2020 "300201 Agricultural hydrology"

Climate and land use change pressures are critical to food production in Social-Ecological Systems (SESs). This study assessed farmers’ perceptions of the pressures of climate and land use changes alongside their impacts on food production in Mhahakanumulla Village Tank Cascade System (MVTCS), a SES maintained by traditional agricultural land use systems in the dry zone of Sri Lanka. This study used both rating and ranking scale questions to quantify farmers’ perceptions. The tobit regression model was employed to evaluate how farmer perception was influenced by socio-economic factors. The results showed that most of the farmers had experienced that the climate of the MVTCS area had changed over time, and they perceived variability of rainfall patterns as the most prominent and influential climate change. The increased cost of production, wildlife damage, and land degradation were ranked by the farmers as the most impactful factors of food production due to climate change. The farmers rated deforestation and land clearing as the most influential and impactful changes in land use, while wildlife damage and land degradation ranked as the highest impacts on food production due to land use changes. Among the socio-economic determinants, training and income/profit positively influenced farmer perceptions of the severity of both climate and land use change. The level of farmer’s adaptation to climate change had a negative association with their perception of the severity of climate change. Household size negatively influenced the perceptions of the severity of climate change while positively influencing perceptions of land use change impacts. Among the spatial determinants, farm size and downstream locations of MVTCS positively influenced perceptions of the severity of both climate and land use change. Thus, the effectiveness of adaptation strategies towards climate and land use change pressures depends on how well they are understood by the farmers. The study findings provide helpful insights for formulating localized land use policies and climate change adaptation strategies in these globally important landscapes with a combination of both top-down and bottom-up approaches.

Financial institutions are indirectly exposed to risks associated with the impacts and dependencies on natural capital and ecosystem services of the companies that they invest in, lend to, and insure. This is particularly true for banks lending to agriculture: a sector with both significant impacts and critical dependencies on natural capital. Bank lending is a vital source of new finance for the sector, which is essential to achieve sustainable intensification targets. Yet current credit decision-making practice is still based on conventional financial and management indicators, lacking any systematic assessment of natural capital risks, especially those associated with dependencies. Operationalising natural capital risk assessment requires practicable indicators and data to evaluate the most material natural capital risks for a given sub-sector and geography, but it is unclear to what extent these are available. We assess the practicability of natural capital dependency risk indicators and data sources for a critical case study of Australian sheep production. We find that at least moderately practicable indicators and data sources are available to assess the 11 major dependency risks that are material for this industry. Challenges remain in determining risk thresholds for most indicators, and quantifying risk impacts on profitability.

Research on social–ecological systems is rapidly expanding globally in response to human induced climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem degradation. Safeguarding these traditional agroecosystems is vital according to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In the last decade, there has been a growing research interest in the Village Tank Cascade Systems (VTCSs) of Sri Lanka, recognised as social–ecological systems. However, few studies have systematically analysed VTCS research in Sri Lanka. To examine this apparent knowledge gap in more detail, a bibliometric analysis and knowledge mapping were conducted to systematically analyse and interpret the state, trends, clusters, and emerging fields of VTCS research. In total, 159 peer-reviewed research publications between 1985 and 2023 were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus databases, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate to perform this analysis. Furthermore, this study employed the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture systems (SAFA) tool, developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, to map the inclusion of sustainability and productivity dimensions in VTCS research, in alignment with the objectives set forth by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The study provides insight into dominant and neglected areas of future VTCS research.