PICO
Hydroclimatic extremes, ranging from prolonged droughts to intense wet spells and flooding, are intensifying worldwide. These changes pose escalating risks to agriculture, water management, and, ultimately, global food security, livelihoods, and societies. Yet, projected changes and their cascading effects are often assessed in isolation, a practice that underestimates systemic risks. A more holistic perspective, that acknowledges uncertainties, interactions, and feedbacks of both droughts and floods, is essential to identify resilient and sustainable transition pathways for complex adaptive systems such as agriculture and other land-use systems.
Farmers are traditionally experts at navigating climate variability, but the increasing severity and frequency of hydroclimatic extremes demand new strategies to mitigate systemic risks. Agriculture plays a threefold role in this context: as a sector heavily affected by climate change, as a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and as a key source to implement solutions and adaptation strategies. This interplay both amplifies uncertainties and opens opportunities for transformative adaptation. Understanding how individual farmers, farming communities, and agricultural governance actors evaluate risks and adjust practices under dynamic and uncertain conditions is central to clarifying how decisions at different spatial and temporal scales may trigger, accelerate, or prevent broader regime shifts.
This session invites contributions from across the natural and social sciences to explore the multifaceted interactions between hydroclimatic extremes and agriculture. We particularly welcome studies that:
• Provide observational evidence, case studies and methodological advancements on the interplay between climate extremes, agriculture and other land use systems.
• Advance theoretical and conceptual perspectives on connected, compound, and cascading risks and uncertainties.
• Apply nexus approaches, integrating environmental, socio-economic, and governance dimensions.
• Share participatory, co-production, or transdisciplinary approaches engaging farmers, local communities, and other stakeholders
• Examine decision-making processes and responses at the farm, community, and governance levels, including adaptation strategies and barriers across spatial and scales.
• Explore agricultural adaptability, transformation pathways, and potential regime shifts under climate extremes.